


Gilt in Silver and Gold

by Araceil



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (but that's canon anyway), Action/Adventure, Canon Typical Racism, Drama, Force Ghost Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Harry accidentally Gellert Grindelwald, Harry accidentally a War, Horcrux Shenanigans, Hufflepuff!Harry, Humour, I'll add more tags as they come up, I'm Sorry, M/M, Myrtle Warren Lives, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Period-Typical Sexism, Romance, S L O W B U R N, Teenage Tom Riddle, Time Travel Fix-It, Tom Riddle Being an Asshole, Tom Riddle and Tom Riddle | Voldemort are two different entities, WWII, it is the 40's, timetravel, tomarry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:49:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23670349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Araceil/pseuds/Araceil
Summary: It started with a wretched scream from a Death Eater, a burst of accidental magic so powerful it flung away the people holding him down.It started with an unknown spell and a potion bottle and a desperate cutting curse from an unknown wizard trying to save him, it started with a blood sacrifice and a gargled mispronounced spell from an accidentally half-decapitated head, and a broken bottle exploding at his feet.And the world heaved around them.Harry Potter vanished in the plume of burning potion fumes, a burst of golden smoke that engulfed him so suddenly he hadn't the chance to move.It started with the death of Voldemort and the one person in the entire damn world that wanted to save him for his own sake following on his heels, and the unspoken left to hang between them, and the single sliver of soul that knew love through him.Harry had no idea where he was, just that he was under attack. He didn't intend to irrevocably alter the timeline. He didn't intend to draw attention to himself at Hogwarts. He didn'tintendto get the attention of Tom Riddle. But he did it anyway.
Relationships: Harry Potter & Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle
Comments: 517
Kudos: 2593
Collections: Top-tier HP/TMR Fics





	1. Chapter 1

It started like this:

Voldemort fell.

Harry tried to save him at the end. Offered him one last out. All he had to do was try. _Try_ for some remorse.

He had hated this man for so long, this man who stole everything from him. This man who violated him physically, magically, _spiritually_. This man whom he had tethered to life for almost two decades, for almost his entire life. Who hurt him so completely, so intimately, the stain of him would never wash off his skin, never be scrubbed free of his magic or his soul. He would, forever, be marked.

But so too had he. Voldemort was marked by him in turn. Not by his destroyed body, not by his regained serpentine homunculi form. Nor even by his years as a wraith. Harry had seen the truth of it in the between, in death.

Harry had sheltered the fractured cast off shard of Voldemort's ragged broken soul for almost his entire life, he had _protected_ it, nurtured it, and for the first time in Tom Riddle's life, he had known _love_.

It started when Harry tried to save him.

It started when he tried to get a Dark Lord to pull the broken pieces of his flayed unloved abandoned soul back, tried to have him take in that precious piece he filled with light, the one sliver of a twisted abandoned thing that had finally known love. Tried to save him, _wanted_ to save him.

And Voldemort refused.

To regret was pain.

Remorse would kill.

And it was safer, _easier_ , to hide than open himself to more hurt.

And he died.

The torn pieces of his soul united once more again, at long last, in death and rest. At peace, for the first and last time.

It started with a wretched scream from a Death Eater, a burst of accidental magic so powerful it flung away the people holding him down.

It started with an unknown spell and a potion bottle and a desperate cutting curse from an unknown wizard trying to save him, it started with a blood sacrifice and a gargled mispronounced spell from an accidentally half-decapitated head, and a broken bottle exploding at his feet.

And the world heaved around them.

Harry Potter vanished in the plume of burning potion fumes, a burst of golden smoke that engulfed him so suddenly he hadn't the chance to move.

It started with the death of Voldemort and the one person in the entire damn world that wanted to save him for his own sake following on his heels, and the unspoken left to hang between them, and the single sliver of soul that knew love through him.

Harry drifted.

Eons could pass in death.

And not a second would pass in life.

It was all and nothing all at once.

He knew Tom Riddle was there, he knew that he was whole.

He didn't open his eyes as a hand was laid across his head, as lips opened, and words refused to express the remorse, the pain, the regret, and the _gratitude_ that welled up in the healed over scars across his soul. The tiny flayed baby Harry found upon the floor of Kingscross Station in the Between, now grown, now whole. His skin no longer rubbed raw and torn off by hurt and betrayal and abandonment.

He felt the regret _Ihavenorighttoask_ the guilt _pleasepleasepleaseIdon'tdeserveitIknowbutplease_ the desperation _savemeifitsyouyoucandoitplease_

And he was pushed, the hand across his head forcing him down and back.

He fell.

And hit a stone floor hard enough to crack his head and the world to flash white with pain as he curled over himself with a squawk, wrapping his arms around his head in pain as everything spun and hurt and his stomach lurched. But he could feel it the second he rolled to the side. Dark Magic crawling across his skin, a cold dirty floor, the smell of damp, dark spaces, old blood, and cold.

Pain throbbed through his skull, making his vision flash and spin as he opened his eyes, made his brain rattle as he heard shouting in the distance.

He felt a hand on the top of his skull, an unmistakable impression of some kind of apology, but then a warning, sharp and clear, and he threw himself to the side, wand coming up on reflex as a spell scorched the ground where he had been a split second earlier. The disarming charm was immediate and subconscious and it caught his attacker in the chest, snatching their wand and launching them off their feet and into the two men behind them.

He summoned their wands and stunned the lot of them, but the shouting continued and Harry groaned in pain, his vision dark around the edges and swimming unpleasantly as he struggled to his feet and clung to the wall.

More people came and he honestly didn't know how he didn't get himself killed.

He summoned Prongs and somewhen, somehow, he gained his balance, his vision settled, he still didn't know where he was, didn't recognise the people around him, he _thought_ they were shouting in German but... he had no idea. He had only ever heard German in films before, they could have been speaking Russian for all he knew. But they were loud, and they were panicked, and they were trying to kill him. That was all he really needed to know as he summoned wands, disarmed people, tied them up, stunned them, stuck them to the ceiling, the walls, the floors, one particularly arrogant blond freaked out when Harry batted aside his spell and started screaming in – whatever language it was, at his wand, looking like his entire world view had fallen down around his ears. Harry transfigured the man's own robes into a sack and left him stunned in the middle of the corridor as he turned his attention to the dark haired witch who conjured lightning from the tip of her wand into a whip which was _awesome cool_. He was going to have to figure out how to do that later.

And then it was... over?

Everything had gone quiet, there was no more shouting, no more running feet or slamming doors or sizzling spell fire.

He groaned as he sank down to his knees in the middle of the meeting room he found himself in, exhausted.

He stared dully up at the clock and wondered how many hours he'd been awake for because he didn't remember sleeping last night, and the night before either. It was mid-morning now. It had been dawn when he fought Voldemort in the Great Hall. It had been almost beautiful to see the dawn breaking across the enchanted ceiling, like – like a symbol of hope as he asked the man to find some remorse, to feel _something_ other than rage or fear or pride or greed. But in the end, he had been rejected and

He didn't know why it hurt but it did.

Maybe it was because he had truly bought into his own hype and thought for one blisteringly hot second he could _save_ him. The little boy from the orphanage who decided that if he was going to be alone that would have to be enough, it would have to be more than enough. That if no one wanted him, he would make himself too good for them anyway.

But in the end, all he'd been was a beaten dog snarling in the corner, biting any hand extended towards him, beaten far too often to ever trust again. So he would protect himself in the only way he knew how. By lashing out, by rejecting, by turning away from the light as if it would burn him instead of warm him. Driven mad by neglect and Dark Magic poisoning him from within, the imbalance of his ripped open flayed soul, what was probably some kind of Post Traumatic Stress from living in London during the Blitz, from being a _mudblood_ in Slytherin house at the height of Grindelwald's power.

It would never excuse his actions.

But it was easier to see how a plant locked away in the dark and fed nothing but hate would grow crooked and poisonous.

He was tired.

Why did his heart ache? Why did it feel as though he had lost a piece of _himself_ when he had been _freed_ from a piece of _him?_

The doors banged open in the distance, more shouting, more bootfalls, and Harry groaned, pushing himself to his feet as a new wave of people burst into the corridors.

These ones.... in a much more recognisable uniform.

Wearing SS-uniforms while running into a base run by what he could only _assume_ was some kind of foreign support faction of Voldemort was in _such_ poor taste he didn't even find himself hesitating for a second when he blasted the lot of them off their feet. When he transfigured their guns into steel cables and tied their hands together, when he stuck them to the walls and ceiling just like their magical counterparts.

And then he summoned every wand, knife, and gun there, just in case.

He had just finished piling them up on the table and sat down on an actual chair for the first time in what felt like forever when the doors were kicked in a _third_ time.

He wanted to cry.

But when he heaved himself to his feet and raised a wand, he saw the familiar red uniforms of the aurors and immediately slumped in relief, “Oh thank fuck,” he swore even as the red clad men and women yelped and swore to see the state of everyone there.

He collapsed back in the chair in relief – and then froze with something that was very much not relief.

“Verdammt Scheiße, das ist Gellert Grindelwald!”

“Was zum Teufel, was zum Teufel, was zum Teufel,” a second voice, female, babbled faintly.

“Wart, wer bist du?” One of them finally spotted him and pointed a lumos in his direction.

He winced and shielded his eyes, “Could you – not? My head is killing me,” he complained, wow, his voice was _rough_.

“Ach du Scheiße, es ist ein Kind... do you speak German?” the wizard asked awkwardly, lowering his wand as he examined Harry carefully, eyes lingering on his bloody sweater, his shaking hands, the frayed Hawthorne wand that belonged to Draco Malfoy that was beginning to splinter and fall apart under the use of magic ill suited for it. Harry felt bad for it and gently set the wand on the table.

“Sorry. I don't speak German,” he confessed, keeping his words simple and formal, structuring his sentences like he would have when he was learning French.

The man turned and snapped something at the witch who nodded and ran out very quickly, apparating away with a snap.

“How are you?” the unknown wizard asked in stumbling English and Harry shrugged tiredly, rubbing the back of his head only to pull his hand back covered in blood.

“Oh...” he muttered quietly. That probably wasn't good.

The wizard began to look a little panicked, which was of course when the doors were kicked in again, making Harry do a full body flinch and snatch his wand just in time to see a veritable _army_ of red clad aurors swarm in through the door. More than a few looked at the people stuck to the walls and ceiling with shock, names were blurted out and then more people began to shout about Grindelwald which....

He was beginning to feel a little light headed.

He didn't even notice when he passed out, slipping sideways out of his seat and into the yelping auror's levitation charm barely an inch from the floor. All he could recall was the distant hazy yell for a doctor before his world was swallowed by darkness, and a familiar gentle hand on top of his head along with an unmistakable feeling of pride and apology mixed into one before it vanished.

He slept.

He woke in a hospital wing long enough for a healer with choppy english and a thick accent to force a few potions down his throat, check his head and eyes, and then he was asleep again.

He slept and woke, and took potions, and slept again.

Time was hard to track, his head hurt so very badly, his chest ached like someone had rubbed his sternum with sandpaper, and his brain felt like it had the consistency of lumpy soup. More broth than slop.

Then he woke and felt... fine.

His head didn't feel like soup, his limbs like someone had sucked the marrow out of them, he felt rested, if a bit sore in the way he normally would after sleeping like the dead after a Quidditch match. Too deep and too hard without moving and your body didn't appreciate it. He slowly sat himself upright, and with that uncanny timing that all medi-witches seemed to have, his healer appeared with a tray of thin soup, a dark brown bread roll, a few slices of meat and cheese, and a glass of milk with a small potion phial next to it.

“You look well. Eat. Aurors will be here when you have finished,” the woman informed him in her usual brusque manner, but her hands and expression were gentle as she set his tray down and fussed over his pillows and bedding, spelling the bed to bend so he could sit upright before moving the tray to his lap.

“What is this?” he asked holding up the potion phial.

She grimaced thoughtfully, “For health. You do – _did_ not eat enough before. Your health was bad. This is to eat with. Make your health good,” she explained as best she could with her limited vocabulary.

“Thank you,” he said, and saw her smile kindly and she shook her head.

“No. Thank _you_. Grindelwald is not – ” she struggled for a moment, muttering in German under her breath for a moment, “Is prison now. _In_ prison now,” she corrected with a pleased nod. “Thank you.”

What.

His smile was uncomfortable as a horrible sinking feeling developed in the pit of his stomach that made it hard to eat even though the last nine months hadn't exactly been fantastic on the food front. Even if he hadn't felt as awful as he did, he wouldn't have been able to get much more down than the soup and half of a bread roll.

The healer didn't look happy when she came to collect his dishes, she left him with the rest of the bread roll to pick at, his drink, and the potion phial but took the rest away – not long after, the aurors arrived with a man in very fancy robes who looked like he had swallowed a lemon as soon as he saw Harry with a destroyed bread roll in his hands and a milk-mustache.

“Ein _Kind?!_ ” he hissed at one of the near-by aurors who nodded stiffly, his face set in stone.

The witch took a step forward and smiled at him, “Good morning, how are you feeling there?” she asked kindly as she conjured several chairs for them to sit.

He shrugged, “Better.”

She nodded, “We made sure you had the best care. My name is Auror Monika Scholl, this is Auror Ulrich Himmelrich, and this is Under Secretary Richter. What's your name?”

Senior Under Secretary Richter. Soon to be _Minister_ Richter as of 1949 after a successful election campaign that capitalised on peace-time promises of economic prosperity and greater divides between the magical world and muggle world so that blendings of ideals like Grindelwald and the Nazis could never happen again. Decisions to abduct muggleborn children and obliviate the parents won him the vote. And then lost him his Ministership ten years later when the International Confederation of Wizards finally put their feet down and did something about it.

“Harry P-” The Hermione voice in the back of his head screeched and he felt that presence again, insubstantial hands covering his mouth. “Am I in trouble?” he cut himself off. He couldn't call himself Harry _Potter!_ Not until he knew what was going on because he had a really bad feeling he had fucked up beyond anything he had ever done so before and it was _bad, very bad_.

Auror Scholl looked genuinely shocked, “Of course not! Harry, you defeated the Dark Lord and left him trussed up in a sack! You took out the entirety of his Acolytes and half of the muggle Thule Society! Why would we _punish_ you?”

He fidgeted, “I'm – I'm not German.... And I shouldn't have been there?” he asked uncertainly. This was not how his previous encounters with the Ministry had gone and he was currently trying really damn hard to stave off a complete freak out because no, no, no, no, _no, not when he'd_ _**finally** _ _defeated Voldemort this was unfair they couldn't do this to him it had to be a joke it_ _**had** _ _to be!_

Auror Scholl scoffed, waving a dismissive hand, “You're a hero,” she declared and then paused when Richter said something sternly to her, she stiffened a little in her seat and replied professionally before turning back to him with a small smile, “Sorry Harry. I'm actually here to act as a translator for my Superiors. Now, how about that name, huh?” she asked kindly as she withdrew a notebook and Harry swallowed against his rising panic as he saw her writing 'Harry P' down on it.

Grindelwald. Acolytes. Thule Society. Richter.

He couldn't say Potter.

“P-everell.” It was true at any rate. He was the last of the Peverell line, he'd even united all the Hallows. He saw the way the aurors and Richter sat up straighter in their seats, exchanging looks, and then he remembered Grindelwald's obsession with the Deathly Hallows which – convenient actually, it would explain why he was there at any rate. “Harry Peverell. I'm – I'm homeschooled. My godfather didn't want me going to a big school with the current.... situation. He said large groups of people get targeted,” he bullshitted, fiddling with his fingers as he stared down at his bedding.

He heard the aurors mutter something after she translated for him, and he really wished he knew German so he could gauge whether or not they were buying it.

“And where is your godfather now?” Auror Scholl asked, scribbling a few notes.

Harry gripped his bedding. “Dead,” he croaked, “Two years now. The Dark Lord he – ” he cut himself off, and shuddered, “There was a trap and I walked right into it and Sirius – it was my fault.”

Auror Scholl pointed her quill at him, “It is _only_ Grindelwald's fault, you hear me?” she snapped, before turning to her colleagues and he hoped translating what he'd said, though she sounded annoyed. Her auror colleague, Himmelrich, asked a question and she nodded, “What happened after that, Harry? This is an informal chat, but we are trying to get an idea of who you are and where you came from so we can help you get back there, or find out what you need now. You've done the world a huge service in stopping that madman.”

He squirmed unhappily, “I don't – I didn't _mean_ to, I didn't even know where I was,” he admitted unhappily and she paused. “I – it was an accident, we'd been on the run, hiding, all year and then a big fight broke out and, a Dark Wizard threw something at me, a potion bottle. Someone tried to stop them but they missed, they accidentally cut his neck open and then everything just went gold and – I fell. I hit my head and I was in that place. I didn't know where I was or who those people were, just that they were attacking me. So I.... I knocked them out and took their wands,” he admitted quietly.

Auror Scholl translated numbly, and he didn't have to look up to see the sheer disbelief on the faces of everyone there.

Richter demanded something faintly.

“The greatest Dark Magic practitioner was taken out by a concussed child who didn't even know who he was, is that what you're saying?” Auror Scholl translated, sounding a little faint herself.

Harry shrugged, “Which one was he?” he found himself asking and she made a strangled noise.

* * *

Harry of course knew exactly why Grindelwald couldn't fight him. He had the Elder Wand. And the Elder Wand would not work against its Master. Harry had cemented that role when he united all of the Hallows under one bloodline, one person, and then greeted Death like an old friend.

Some things stained you soul deep.

Like being a Horcrux.

He stared up at a young Professor Dumbledore and wanted to launch himself out of the nearest window, all the while he cursed violently in the back of his head. This was not what he wanted, this was not planned, _why was he even **here?!** _

Dumbledore's smile wasn't unfriendly, it was complicated, as was the absence of the twinkle in his eye as he watched him, Sorting Hat in hand.

“Welcome to Hogwarts, Mister _Evans_ ,” he greeted, with an ever so slight stress on his surname, Harry winced a bit. The Germans had obviously told him the truth then. That it was his mother's maiden name. Being a Peverell would draw too much of the wrong kind of attention, and given what they had no doubt been assuming up to now: that his parents had been murdered by Grindelwald on his Hallow hunt, that he escaped and grew up with his ultra paranoid and protective godfather who was brutally murdered leaving Harry and his closest mudblood friends to flee and go on the run while being harried by Acolytes until a malfunctioning Portkey managed to get him into Nurmengard where he proceeded to 'prove his bloodline' by taking all of Grindelwald's followers and the man himself down and out to be arrested.

The official story was that a joint Allied Task Force received information on Grindelwald's location and an inside informant dropped the wards for them to Portkey in and interrupt everything. The informant stunned Grindelwald from behind and was subsequently executed by the other Acolytes before the aurors could save them. The aurors had no idea who said informant was, they used an alias.

He gave the Deputy Headmaster a wobbly smile, “Hi. Um.”

The man's smile became a little more natural, but his eyes still held a lot of complicated emotions.

“Worry not, Hogwarts has seen a remarkable influx of transfer students these last few years, you will hardly be the first or last homeschooled or foreign schooled student that has joined us halfway through the school-year.” Harry nodded awkwardly and shuffled in place, picking at his nice new robes. He had received an _incredibly_ generous lump-sum of galleons from both the German Ministry but also the British Ministry, Auror Scholl had giggled and told him that it was both the Bounty on Grindelwald's head, and also hush money. Britain would want to brag about having a hand in the defeat of Grindelwald, but Germany didn't want to give them the satisfaction, and since Harry wanted to keep his head down and go unnoticed, there had ended up being a lot of backroom meetings where his cover story was hashed out and arrangements on his behalf were made.

But of course being a British national, England wanted him back, and they wanted to make sure he stayed and tried to make it as attractive to him as possible by matching the hush-money and bounty that Germany gave him. Schooling at Hogwarts was thrown in as well when it was brought up that he had missed the last two years of his education due to being on the run (Harry did not enlighten them to the fact it was only one because it was easier).

His only request was to see all the wands taken by the aurors that day as the one he had wasn't his own, he stole it from the son of an Acolyte forced to confront him. There had been a lot of mournful tutting about young lives and potential being wasted but let him have access to the lot. It was easy to find the Elder Wand. And in front of the alarmed gazes of the auror department, he snapped it over his knee and tossed it in a bin.

The alarm and outrage when he informed them it was his ancestor's wand, and that Grindelwald had stolen it, hence his interest in Harry and his family was funny. They had apparently planned on putting the wand up on display to show their triumph over Grindelwald, use it as evidence against him in his show-trial later.

When he pointed out that wanna-be Dark Lords may end up worshipping it and seeing it as a rallying symbol/point, they quieted down with new realisation and horror. Evidentially no one had thought of that.

That put an end to the Elder Wand and its bloody history.

He wondered what Dumbledore thought of it.

“As you may or may not know, Hogwarts is a boarding school that operates on a House System. The Sorting Hat here is kind enough to see the best characteristics of our students and place them with like-minded individuals where they may be comfortable,” the man explained kindly as Harry rolled his shoulders in his robes, suddenly nervous all over again. Would he go back to Gryffindor? Would the Hat finally get its way and put him in Slytherin? Could.... could he choose? “Those of ambition and cunning go to Slytherin, intelligence and wit to Ravenclaw, loyalty and dedication to Hufflepuff, and those noble and brave will go to Gryffindor. Once we have you sorted, I will escort you to Diagon Alley where we will fetch your school supplies for the year, as well as a new wand,” he added, another complicated look crossing his face.

Oh.

Oh yeah. THIS Dumbledore also knew about the Elder Wand.

And he knew Harry was aware too, and had just.... snapped it over his knee like the trash it was.

“I don't have the others,” he found himself blurting, making the man pause. “The... things. Like the wand. I don't have them. You can – stop looking at me like that,” he muttered, hunching up on himself and looking away.

Dumbledore's eyes went wide and he paled, “I – apologise, Mister Evans, I wasn't – I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable.” What must he be thinking, to put such a look of self-disgust on his face? Probably thinking back to his childhood with Grindelwald, how they spoke of the Hallows, his own interest in them for his desire to see his deceased family again. And how Harry had lost his because of that same obsession in a different man.

Harry shrugged, “It's okay. They don't work like the stories say anyway. They're traps.” The stone drove its wearer mad, whether they used its power or not. The cloak was the only non-dangerous one, even though it _was_ cursed. Or so Hermione had theorised. She wanted to have access to the death records of his whole family to see whether the dates matched up with the changing of the Headship. Was passing the cloak down a sign that the previous Potter was going to die, or a catalyst of it? She wanted more information but none of them had the chance to study it. It certainly seemed to be the case with James Potter. He allowed Dumbledore to take the cloak to conduct studies and experiments on the Hallow, and he very shortly died, while Harry survived. Old magic could be very finicky like that.

He had not liked that conversation. Hermione had not liked his reaction to that conversation.

Albus swallowed, “I – see.... well.... Perhaps we should focus on our real reason to be here today, hm?” he suggested with what was most definitely a warble to his voice.

Harry nodded and sat down, letting his shaking hands drop the hat on his head.

_Oh my._

Yeah. He just wanted to state, for the record, this was _not_ planned.

 _I can see that boy. What a pickle you've found yourself in. But I see your plan, it_ is _a good one. Stay under the radar and leave as soon as possible to avoid upsetting the apple-cart any further. Looking back though, I rather get the feeling that won't be possible._

It will be! He'll just – he'll put his head down and make himself invisible. The only reason trouble took so much effort to seek him out before hand was because he was famous, because he was Harry Bloody Potter the Boy Who Lived With Facial Disfigurement. He was no one here. Just another mudblood. He just had to keep his head down and his mouth shut.

 _Well, we'll see how long that lasts. I give you a month before something happens even if I_ do _put you in Hufflepuff._

Did he mention how much he hated the Sorting Hat?

_You can mention it as much as you like boy. When it happens, I will say I told you so with great pleasure._

Just – please, put him in Hufflepuff. They accepted everyone. Harry needed to avoid changing the timeline and aside from the rising stars or the true disappointments, Hufflepuff was largely ignored by the student population. Especially at this time. He didn't have the brains for the riddles in Ravenclaw and he actually hated studying anything that didn't actively interest him. Gryffindor would put him with his grandparents, with people like him, and he would slip up. Putting him in Slytherin was a recipe for someone dying. Because he would kill them.

_I wouldn't have put you in Slytherin anyway. Helga placed very specific enchantments upon me to prevent any Sortings that would actively place a child's life in danger. That's why there are no muggleborn in Slytherin unless they are made of particularly stern stuff, and unlikely to kill their peers._

“Hufflepuff!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys can already guess how this is going to go horribly wrong for Harry.
> 
> I have not planned a single word of this fic, it just kind of... happened. So yeah. Harry defeats one Dark Lord, gets timetravelled, defeats another without even knowing who he is, and is now in school with the first one before he went off the deepend while being haunted by the patched together remorseful spirit of the one he defeated.
> 
> Time has no meaning in death. All the pieces of Voldemort's soul recombined in death and that one little sliver that Harry nurtured spread out like a poison and stitched the rest of him back together, returned his humanity, and Voldemort became Tom Riddle once again, and he regretted. But he's still an opportunist, so when Harry ended up in death, but was still alive, he decided to do something about it - and given his obsessive search into immortality, I refuse to believe he didn't look into time as well, the two are intrinsically linked, so he was able to push a bit of timetravel Harry's way for the sole purpose of begging him to save his younger self from destroying so many lives. He's along for the ride because he wants to help, he would do it himself, but he doesn't trust himself.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING:** Idiot british imperialism, mentioned animal abuse, mentioned kitten eating

Hogwarts was like a kicked over ant-hill, even now, two weeks after the newspapers reported on the issue.

Grindelwald had been captured by an Allied Task Force. Him, his top Acolytes and followers, as well as half of the muggle nazi Thule Society that had been illegally working with them to reveal the magical world to the rest of the muggle world at large. Grindelwald's rise had been stopped in its tracks, the German Ministry had executed him via Dementor's Kiss last week, and what followed was a steady march of his top Acolytes following in his wake, their souls ripped out of their still living bodies.

While the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff students had yet to stop celebrating, feelings were mixed in both Slytherin and Ravenclaw.

On the one hand, they were pleased that the foreign wizard who had been terrorising their country as if he had any right to had been struck down like a worm, how dare he believe he were superior to them, that he could dictate how they lived in any kind of fashion? On the other, his views on blood purity and the position of magic-kind in the world were intelligent and well reasoned and made sense, none could find fault with them (unless they were blood traitors or mudbloods themselves), only where they came from. An uppity German drop-out, cast from his school for perversions of magic. Had an upright Hogwarts graduate of fine British pureblood stock proposed such ideals, it would have surely been better received by the world at large.

So yes, feelings were mixed.

More so than any would have believed in Slytherin house.

Holed up in their corner of the Slytherin Common Room, cards laid out in front of them, their group were largely ignored by the rest of the whispering house as allegiances changed, views were disavowed and reavowed and protested and mocked, blackmail was gathered and wielded with scalpel-like precision, and frightened children whispered about the future of their world, their parents, and what they would do now that the Dark Lord was gone. Speculation was rampant. It would have been the perfect opportunity to network further, but to do so would leave himself vulnerable as well, and he had far less leeway than his peers to recover from such vulnerability. Tom kept to himself and his small circle of friends.

Those who knew the truth.

“This could be our chance,” Pius Avery muttered as he laid a card down.

“Don't be a berk,” Guthrie Lestrange sneered as he set down one of his own. “Just because Grindelwald got creased doesn't mean anyone is going to listen to a bunch of yobs, even if we _are_ purebloods,” he pointed out bitterly with a curling lip.

Tom found himself suppressing a sneer of his own. It was always surreal to listen to purebloods using the same mudblood slang he had come to Hogwarts uttering, irritating though because it was the same slang he was cursed for using as an eleven year old, now somehow _acceptable_ because it was spoken by one whose blood was apparently _better_ than his. It was certainly prettier when it splattered across white linen and cold flagstones, slicking pale skin, and green trimmings.

He brushed the fantasies and memories aside, “The world will be in a great deal of turmoil still,” he pointed out reasonably as his turn came and he laid down a card after only brief consideration, letting no sign of his dark thoughts show on his face. “And I do believe I have just won,” he announced as he leaned over and collected their pot of sweets.

Avery groaned and tossed his cards down on the table in a snit. “I'm not saying that we can just pick up where he left off, but it's still a chance, an _opportunity_. We find out who's still interested in him, who agrees, and we keep an eye on them. Build connections. That way when we _are_ ready they are already acquainted with us and our goals. We can use them,” he explained eagerly in a hushed voice so as not to be overheard by the rest of the room. Not that they would with the charms Tom had taken to casting around their little corner for these very reasons.

It was a good idea. Well thought out. The downside was that the time used for them to identity and know their connections, their connections could also use to do the same, and they would be far more ruthless and cunning about taking advantage of it than they would. That was the unfortunate blind-spot that he had encouraged within his followers, they believed him capable of anything, believed themselves capable of anything, but Tom had been under the thumb of people for as long as he could remember and no matter how much he yearned to throw that yoke off, he had learned from experience that he was not capable of it. _Yet_. He had the intelligence and power to crush whomever he so wished, but he did not have the _experience_ or the connections to do so properly, safely. Going in with brute force was far too _Gryffindor_. Tom refused to become a puppet, to have his wings clipped by those in a more advantageous position than he, able to trap him in wire and garrotte him with his own ignorance.

“Not yet. Just as we have our ambitions, so too will they. It wouldn't do to become tools in the hands of others,” he murmured silkily, watching them from under his lashes with predatory intent.

That was when Rosier appeared, thumping down into a hastily conjured seat, his young face shining excitedly. “My cousin just mirror-floo'd me,” he whispered, making everyone around the table sit up attentively.

Donovan Rosier, the eldest male of the family currently in Hogwarts. His older sister, Druella, was in her seventh year, his younger brother in his third. But their _cousin_ , Vinda Rosier, had graduated some three years ago – and straight into the Acolytes of Grindelwald. She had been using her former connections in Hogwarts to pass information to other like-minded families through their children, used her brother to gather intel on Dumbledore and his comings and goings. They had been contemplating joining Grindelwald to learn from him, to enjoy the benefits of the new world he was going to build, and once the infrastructure was laid down, the hard-work complete, Tom had every intention of stealing it out from under him.

Alas, the best laid plans of mice and men...

When the news dropped that all of the Acolytes had been taken in along with the Dark Lord, Donovan had immediately written home to find out what had become of her – but she had not contacted them. The only sign of hope they had was that her clockhand pointed to travelling rather than mortal danger or prison, so they could only hold out hope that she had managed to escape. Apparently she had been successful.

Nero Mulciber spelled the cards back into a pile and charmed them to deal themselves again to better cover for their conversation. “What did she say?” he hissed.

Rosier was flushed with excitement, the sixteen year old's hands shook ever so slightly as he gathered his cards, “That the papers are lying, it _wasn't_ a Joint Task Force that took Grindelwald down,” he whispered urgently to the astonishment of the other boys, all fifth and seventh years with him as the only sixth year.

“What happened?” Avery demanded, his voice squeaking slightly.

“It couldn't have been Dumbledore,” Lestrange muttered, scowling as he tapped his fingertip on the table with increasing agitation. “He hasn't left the castle since All Hallows.”

Rosier shook his head, “It wasn't. It was a _teenager_. He just appeared and started taking them all out,” he whispered. “She saw the Dark Lord go down and ran for it. He just – she said he _slapped the Dark Lord's spell aside like it was nothing_ ,” he hissed, practically vibrating in his seat, gripping his playing cards hard enough to crumple them between his fingers. “She took the long way home, doubled back, hid herself, just in case he tried to follow her. I can't _believe_ it.”

“I _don't_ believe it,” Lestrange growled even as Mulciber breathed out slowly, no doubt feeling the same burst of adrenaline and excitement and disbelief in the pit of his stomach as Tom himself had. “A teenager? The strongest Dark Lord seen in Europe for a century taken out by some teenager? Balderdash,” the dark haired seventh year scoffed disbelievingly.

Rosier leaned in, eyes shining, “Vinda said his _wand_ rejected him,” he hushed, making the four of them freeze as the charm to deal the cards finished.

“His _wand?_ ” Avery breathed.

He nodded, “She said it was a legendary artefact that would only serve the strongest wizard, but it turned on him. He didn't think it was possible, but the boy just – he transfigured his robes into a sack and stunned him. Didn't even _look_ at him,” he whispered almost reverently before looking at Tom with wide eyes, “Do – do you think it was another aspiring Dark Lord?” he asked, the unspoken 'like you' hanging in the air.

Which was a fair assumption. No _normal_ teenager would have been able to defeat Grindelwald. No _normal_ teenager would have just stepped over the Dark Lord's fallen body like so much trash. That was the level of power that made the blood in his veins quicken and burn with jealousy, desire, anger, and want. Lord Above, he wanted power like that. To bring low those who would threaten him, and step past them like the unwanted jetsam they were. The way they stepped past him.

“Perhaps,” Tom mused neutrally as he collected his cards.

With the way the war was, they were cut off from their sister schools. Anyone could have risen to prominence within them. Many students had been forced to flee the fighting in Europe by their parents, and Hogwarts had seen a swell of formerly homeschooled children, as well as former Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students with decidedly impure origins, or those who simply had homes within dangerous locations – such as the Malfoy family. Seventh year Abraxas Malfoy had transferred some four years ago when the fighting resulted in his family manor being bombed to hell and back, they had barely escaped and in a fit of spiteful fury upon learning it was _German_ artillery that cost them their home, they went to England and began anew there. Abraxas was haughty and cold, he thought Hogwarts was ugly, its teaching subpar, and its students filthy. He had perhaps two friends within the castle, and dismissed everyone else. Even Tom, despite his power. No matter. He would bring the blond to heel later. There was time. Let him _enjoy_ the hospitality of England before Tom came to collect on that debt of _gratitude_.

But first, the mysterious teenager that took down Grindelwald.

 _That_ was far more interesting.

“Would your cousin be willing to share the memory?” he found himself asking as he laid down the first card of the game, eyes glinting in the shadows of Slytherin's common room.

* * *

Dumbledore was giving him the eyeball again. The complicated hairy uncertain eyeball.

And Harry knew exactly why as he paid for a sturdy charmed wand-holster for his eleven and a half inch holly and phoenix feather wand.

It was good to have his old friend back, but the magic in the wand was unfamiliar with him, uncertain of his character, it hadn't yet bonded to him completely, not the way that it had before. Not enough to conjure fire of its own volition.

Hermione and the others had never believed him about that, but somewhere in his heart of hearts, he was fairly sure it had been Fawkes who called it for him. Somehow. It was a piece of him, and he had turned himself into a shelter and burned himself out with Dumbledore's body to ensure he remained unmolested and unviolated in his eternal rest. Harry didn't think it would have been beyond him to shoot his own magic out from one of his feathers – even if it was in Harry's wand and several hundred miles away. What was distance to a phoenix?

The trip itself had been uneventful. They got his trunk first and Harry purposefully splashed out a bit on that to get one with an expansion charm and an extra compartment, he wanted to take things seriously this time. After all, there would be no Dark Lord trying to kill him, and no Hermione to haul his ass out of the fire. He had to pull his finger out. Twilfig and Tattings' was a minor torture in of itself because – well. Fashion. _1940's fashion_ for _wizards_. Thank fuck for uniform robes. He asked for several of them and some stuff that would fit with the current fashions of the muggle world, at least that was nice and neutral even though.... suspenders for his socks? That... the lack of elasticated underwear was going to take some getting used to. At least he could honestly say he looked pretty snazzy in a suit. The girls in the store certainly thought so, feeling up his biceps in shock and tittering about how he had the muscle of a muggle which, what the fuck, also, let him go? Now?

The apothecary was disgusting as usual and he grimaced to see so many subpar ingredients on offer, and the signs declaring strict rationing in progress. Professor Dumbledore sighed to see it and informed him they would only get those ingredients that couldn't be sourced from the greenhouses or school themselves. He got his scales, telescope, a bunch of other important things, Harry ignored the quills and got himself a muggle fountain pen – after so many years of using a quill he had gotten fed up with how much time he wasted having to re-ink the bloody thing and how messy it made not only his handwriting but also himself.

Then they went for his wand.

The atmosphere in Diagon Alley was bright and happy, people were downright joyful and every now and again he could hear a toast being roared from the Leaky Cauldron about Grindelwald's downfall.

A quick glance at Professor Dumbledore showed that he had that complicated look back on his face.

That was partially why their shopping trip was so meandering, Harry doing his best to steer the Professor away from large groups of overly pleased people. He didn't regret this, he didn't regret helping these people and making them happy, but he did regret fucking up the timeline, upsetting the Professor, and stealing his opportunity to confront his own traumas and hang-ups and resolve them himself. He had, essentially, robbed the world of the wise old headmaster that Harry had known in the future, because without that defining battle, without that clarity and development, this man would never become that one.

He wanted to say something but it felt.... improper.

This Dumbledore didn't know him. It would have been unwelcome. The observation of the stranger unaware of the history between them, poking his nose where it wasn't wanted or appreciated, the very source of his complicated feelings right now. But at the same time.... Professor Dumbledore was a very complicated figure in Harry's life. There was a lot of love, affection, hurt, and anger rolled into a heady mixture of his own complicated emotions. But right now, it was incredibly uncomplicated for him looking at the transfiguration teacher – he wanted to comfort him, even if it was only a little.

It just wasn't his place anymore.

He sighed as they passed the entrance of Knockturn Alley, almost indistinguishable from the rest of the spidering off-branching side alleys that Harry had never explored when here, never noticed last time. And that would have been it, if his eyes, sharp even on a bad day, hadn't spotted the tiny crawling potato of a shape shivering in the gutter and tottering up towards the street, a tiny pink little maw opening in a soundless fractured cry.

He stopped and turned to it properly, eyes picking out the filthy sparse fur, swollen pot-belly, tiny limbs, bulbous almost sealed shut gritty eyes, dirty bloodless triangle ears.

“Mister Evans?” he heard the Professor call as he immediately headed for the tiny kitten in the gutter.

It shivered and attempted to stumble away from him but, really, against a Seeker? He scooped the tiny thing up, feeling its body seize and jerk as it cried out soundlessly. Under a silencing charm or just one of those kittens that couldn't meow properly he couldn't tell as he gently cradled the filthy little thing against his chest. Poor thing was freezing.

“Ah, I see you've found a friend,” Professor Dumbledore observed as he caught sight of the kitten, he frowned then, reaching a hand out to tilt its head. “Not very old... A week perhaps? Poor thing. I doubt it has much life left in it,” he murmured, and Harry felt something clench in the pit of his stomach.

“Isn't there anything you can do?” he asked, pulling one of his sleeves down to try and get the little thing cleaned up and drier.

He shook his head looking pained, “I must confess, healing is not my forte, Mister Evans. I _am_ sorry. If you are a particular lover of cats, I can assure you that Berresford Ellis has many fine kittens.” Healthy going unsaid as he examined the kitten in Harry's grasp with sad eyes.

Harry frowned, “Does the magical world not have vets?” he asked plaintively.

Professor Dumbledore looked confused, “May I ask what a 'vet' is?” he asked.

“An animal healer. I mean, surely there is, right? Care of Magical Creatures _is_ an elective, right?” he asked with a frown.

“Unfortunately a dedicated animal healer for non-magical creatures is unheard of. Perhaps we _could_ take the little thing to Professor Kettleburn, but I'm not sure it would survive the trip back to Hogwarts in its current state...” he trailed off uncertainly as Harry scowled, hands cupped protectively around the scruffy little thing. “Likely as not it escaped from a hag or other unsavoury sort in Knockturn Alley. They will not have treated their... _pets_ well,” he explained, carefully correcting his terminology, as if Harry didn't know a hag was more likely to _eat_ a kitten raw than take care of it.

He frowned, “Then its a good thing there's a bookshop over there with healing spells,” he decided briskly, drawing his wand and conjuring a cloth, he used a sticking charm to affix it to his chest and set the kitten inside.

“Mister Evans,” the professor began to say only for his words to dry up when Harry looked at him curiously. He sighed a little and huffed a half-smile, “I believe the healing section is on the second floor, towards the back,” he said, blue eyes beginning to twinkle for the first time since Harry had met him in this timeline. And, complicated feelings aside, Harry beamed, pleased to see it.

* * *

The rest of the shopping trip was uneventful, Professor Dumbledore assisted him in gathering his school books while he devoured the introductory to healing texts he found, and memorised the healer's compendium of charms and potions for the medi-witch on the go (he decided not to address the sexism in the title though he did pull a face). One hour later, trailing along on Dumbledore's heels as they got the last of his purchases and returned to Twilfig's to pick up his order, he had figured out a scanning charm that would tell him what was wrong with the kitten. Which turned out to be rather a lot. Dehydration, half starved, a few fractured ribs, and a lot of parasites, still, Harry healed the ribs with the professor as curious and interested oversight, making sure the charm was cast correctly after reading the instructions himself at Harry's request. It went off without a hitch, and the kitten survived the return to Hogwarts without incident.

Trying to hand it over to Professor Kettleburn was another matter.

She, because the kitten was female according to the professor, did not want to leave Harry's grasp. And she clung on with both teeth and claws when he attempted to hand her off to a stranger.

But she went eventually, the Care of Magical Creatures instructor promising that he would get her back to him right as rain, parasite free, with all her needed medications, and hopefully with a little more meat on her bones.

And Harry went to meet his head of house with blood dripping down his wrists and fingers from claw scratches, with Professor Dumbledore snickering into a clenched fist, as he carefully used his recently acquired healing knowledge to clean them all out and heal them up. That they closed without any sign of redness or inflammation or sign they even existed was....

Harry felt a little thrill of pride at that.

Hermione had learned healing magic was a necessity, but she had never been very good at it. This was something that Harry had picked up within a few hours, on _his own_ , and was _good_ at. He wouldn't say he was as good at it as he was at _flying_ , but he had definitely found it was breath-takingly _easy_ as flying. He just... needed to find out more to be able to do it.

A felt a soft touch on his shoulder, a warning in the back of his head, a pointed sense of being watched, and he looked up, pausing as he closed the last of his cuts, to see Tom Riddle on the otherside of the Entrance Hall.

He looked younger than his diary horcrux did. Close. But still younger.

Brown eyes met green, and there was anger there, curiosity, but no madness.

“Mister Evans?” Professor Dumbledore called, breaking the moment of eye contact. Harry turned, feeling the presence behind him fade again as he quickly charmed his hands and wrists clean of blood and hurried after him. “Are you quite alright?” he asked carefully as Harry drew level, glancing over his shoulder to no doubt aim a frown at the watching Slytherin student.

Harry nodded, “Yeah. Just recognised someone I didn't expect to see,” he dismissed.

“Oh?” the transfiguration teacher prompted as he carefully steered Harry towards the staff-room, and out of sight.

He nodded, “Kid from the orphanage not far from where Sirius used to live. I didn't know it was a magical orphanage, if I had I might have at least tried talking to the other kids,” he mused, knowing it wasn't but not wanting the professor to think he and Riddle had been close while growing up.

The line of tension in the professor's back released, “Alas no, Wools' is not a magical facility. The young wizard you saw is the only one there,” he admitted as they headed up.

“Really? Isn't that dangerous?” Harry asked looking up at the man and cursing his short stature not for the first time as he had to jog every now and again to keep up with his longer stride. “Religion is fairly prominent right now, no one would blink an eye at someone beating a freak demon boy senseless,” he warned. How many times had Aunt Marge decided he needed a sound thrashing? It was only the fact that Petunia herself wasn't religious that stopped some of the more extreme stuff Aunt Marge wanted to do. Harry didn't know about Vernon's religious views, but the whole family still went to church on Sundays because that was the _done thing_ in Little Whinging's middle class social circles.

Professor Dumbledore looked uncomfortable. “Mister Riddle has expressed no problems of the kind....”

Harry arched an eyebrow at him, “Are you sure about that?” he asked doubtfully. He knew for a _fact_ Tom Riddle had asked to stay at Hogwarts over the summer period repeatedly with various members of staff over the years, knew that he had looked into alternative lodging that he unfortunately just couldn't afford, and every time found himself shuffled off to Wools like an unwanted Christmas sweater that only saw the light of day when that one relative who gave it to you showed up.

“Ah, here we are,” the man announced, dismissing the conversation as they arrived at the staff room.

The room was not the same one as it had been in Harry's time, it was larger for a start, more neutrally coloured, full of comfortable furniture in a multitude of colours and fabric patterns. Various desks filled the room with what looked like lesson plans, research papers, markings, and oddly enough what seemed to be floating scrolls of a quill collection, many of which were quite beautiful in actual fact. Inside were a handful of professors, none of them familiar.

“Mister Evans, allow me to introduce Professor Groom,” he announced, presenting him to a portly gentleman in yellow trimmed robes, “He is our Ancient Runes professor and the current head of Hufflepuff house.”

The man beamed at him, rosy apple cheeks dimpling merrily as his wispy white hair floated around his soft features, “You would be our new den-brother I take it, Mister Evans? Absolutely spiffing to meet you!” the man proclaimed jovially as he heaved himself out of what had to be the most overstuffed squishy armchair Harry had ever seen – and Professor Dumbledore had conjured some really squishy ones in the past. “Welcome, welcome!” he cried as he hurried over, both his hair and his robes kind of.... pouf-ing around him as he moved in what could only be described as a _bounce_.

It was utterly ridiculous but he couldn't help but be a little charmed by the enthusiasm.

“Nice to meet you, sir,” he greeted with a smile, letting him seize his hand for a very exuberant handshake.

“Wonderful, yes! Now, do you prefer it if I use your family name, or your first name, lad?” he asked cheerfully, stopping the handshake, but not letting go, instead clapping his other hand on top of Harry's and patting him cheerfully.

It would probably cause less in the way of mishaps if – “My first name is fine. Uh, no one ever really called me by my last name before now so...”

The man nodded dimming almost completely, “Ah, yes, your circumstances,” he mused sadly, before offering him a kindly smile, “Please now, Harry lad, no matter what you can come to me for anything. Hufflepuff is a bastion of safety and welcome to all. If you need advice on girl troubles, home-work help, bullying, nightmares, or even if you just want a biscuit and a cuddle, my door is always open to my students.”

He offered the man a crooked smile, knowing that he probably would never take him up on that offer, “Thank you, sir. I'll keep it in mind.”

His hand was patted once more and then released as the exuberant little man regained his sunshiny enthusiasm, “Excellent, excellent. Now, Albus, thank you my lad for bringing him safe and sound to my house! Marvellous! My thanks!” he exclaimed, seizing the Deputy Headmaster's hand for his own rigorous handshake that the transfiguration professor tolerated with a slightly strained smile. Harry had to press his lips together and swallow back a laugh. He was pretty sure Professor Groom was a good ten to fifteen years younger than Professor Dumbledore who.... if Harry recalled was in his sixties at this point in time.

Professor Dumbledore eventually escaped, he returned Harry's trunk to him, and made his excuses before returning to his classroom, leaving Harry with his new head of house who was eager to help him get settled in.

The rest of his afternoon was filled by going through various electives on offer, and letting him choose which ones he would like to continue. He was stuck with his core electives, Transfiguration, Potions, Charms, Defence, History of Magic, Astronomy, and Herbology; but on top of those he selected Care of Magical Creatures, Healing (which was apparently a class too in these days), Duelling (also a class and not just a club! He was really looking forward to this), but was also talked into taking Ancient Runes as well (Professor Groom was very enthusiastic). He dropped divination completely.

He had suffered more than enough of prophesy to last him multiple life times, thanks.

Because his education had been spotty before hand, and he would be playing catch up, he would be with the fifth years for the majority of his classes, and with the third years for a few others, which meant his class schedule would be an interesting one to figure out – but never fear! They would have it all sorted, right as rain, by breakfast tomorrow morning.

Professor Groom beamed, “We will have you up to snuff in no time at all, Harry lad! Why, I've already been having words with the other heads of house about arranging a rotating schedule of prefects to assist with tutoring you. Really _bring_ you into the Hogwarts family!” Prefects huh? Tutoring..... other heads of – oh no.

“Sounds – great, Professor,” he said stiffly with a plastic smile.

Harry started screaming internally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **SLANG USED:**  
>  _Berk_ : Idiot/dumbass  
>  _Creased_ : Killed  
>  _Yob_ : Boy/young man/teenager  
>  _Balderdash_ : Ridiculous/unbelievable/bullshit  
>  _Spiffing_ : Wonderful/neat/spectacular
> 
> Now, with exception of some first names, the majority of the Slytherin students are canon. Vinda Rosier is from the second Fantastic Beasts film, which I still haven't seen tbh, but I'm going to be using her anyway. Professor Groom is an OMC who I made to just.... be a sunshiney butterball of a head of house, I don't know why he came out like that, I kind of intended to make this stern honeybadger-esque head of house but got this rollypolly cuddle bug instead. I can't say I regret it though. He's fun to write XDDD
> 
> Also, yiissss, tutor Tom. Duelling classes. Harry being a natural healer. Itty Bitty Murder Kitty. And Force Ghost TMR has made another appearance.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING:** Mentioned racist language and attitudes, Harry being terrible at naming things again

New students in the middle of the year were hardly uncommon, there was absolutely nothing remarkable about the other teenager that should have drawn his eye beyond the blood that decorated his hands and wrists. And truly, it _was_ the blood that drew his eye. Thin ribbons of scarlet claret decorating thin wrists and pale skin deftly handling a pale wand that swiftly and easily closed ragged slices in his flesh, vanishing the evidence of violence as if it had never happened. Erasing it.

And then he looked up into killing curse green eyes, and felt his breath stall in his lungs for all of a moment as they as they examined him, studied him, _judged_ him.

And then Dumbledore noticed, because of course he did, and called the other boy to attention. And like that, it was broken, green eyes turned away and he strode confidently towards the Deputy Headmaster who frowned at Tom from over the boy's shoulder. Almost _protectively_. He couldn't stop his eyebrow from jumping up in askance, which only had the professor turning away and leading the new student up the stairs.

Idly, he wondered who the other teenager was as he stepped into the Great Hall for lunch, making his way to the Slytherin table. Professor Slughorn was present so he was obviously not to go to Slytherin otherwise he would have been in the staff-room awaiting his arrival. Professor McLeod was also present, so not a Ravenclaw. How disappointing. Either a Hufflepuff or a Gryffindor.

Oh well, that just meant that it wouldn't be bothersome to his plans if he got a little bloody again later. He had lovely hands all covered in red.

“Ah, Tom, my boy,” Professor Slughorn called, gesturing him over to the head table upon spotting him. Suppressing a sigh he went to his head of house, “Just the one I was hoping to see. I have a bit of a task for you and Ms Greengrass,” he explained with a conspiratory smile, another Prefect duty then, “Hogwarts has recently received a new student of some importance. Unfortunately the young man has missed the last few years of his schooling due to that nasty business with Grindelwald and will need some assistance in catching up. It isn't a task that will fall solely upon your head, goodness no, not with the number of OWLs you have insisted on taking. But it is a duty that will be shared out amongst all of the Prefects in every house until the lad is caught up.”

Tom felt his eyebrow climb.

A new student of some importance who happened to be missing the last few years of his education, the young man he saw earlier with Dumbledore then. It had to be.

The boy with killing curse eyes.

“Of course Professor. You know I am always happy to help.”

* * *

It was strange how the Hufflepuff commons were, literally, the only one he had never actually gone into despite the fact that it was the _easiest_ to get into.

He smiled a little in disbelief as Professor Groom took him down the corridor to the kitchens, past the painting of the pear that would let them in, and to the back where there were a large number of barrels against a wall. Behind the barrels was a circular yellow door, glaringly obvious, with black painted hinges and handle.

“Remember this knock, Harry lad, it's the way in,” the Professor declared cheerfully as he knocked a cheerful rhythm on the door, and then paused, before knocking twice more. It – it was the classic knock knock – knockknock knock ...knock knock. He watched in disbelief as the door swung open into... what was probably the most pleasant Common Room he had ever seen in all honesty. It felt almost like a betrayal of Gryffindor Tower to think it, but the Hufflepuff Commons were just..... pleasant in a way that Gryffindor hadn't managed. The Tower was... overwhelming in all honesty, too much red, too much going on. It was dark and bright all at once. Ravenclaw was open and airy, and despite being beautiful it never particularly felt comfortable or welcoming to him. The less said of Slytherin Common Room and its eerie underwater lighting and cold stone work, harsh lines, and cold light the better.

This? Was nice. Just.... just _nice_. And kind of soothing.

The round door opened into a circular sand-stone porch with wooden floors that lead into a kind of... balcony space. He followed Professor Groom in, the door swinging shut with a gentle thud behind him as he stepped into the open space. Unlike the Slytherin Common Room which was also underground, Hufflepuff seemed to have built their Commons going down, the balcony space he was stood in had the student notice board to his left along with a bookcase bearing a sign that read 'BOOK SWAP – TAKE ONE, LEAVE ONE' that was half filled with various novels both magical and muggle, with the bottom shelf having boxes of _board games_ , dog eared and battered from use. Along the right side was a flower bed and a large assortment of plantpots, all of them overflowing with greenery. Hanging baskets dangled from the ceiling, affixed to dark wood beams like in old fashioned country pubs, the walls were painted a warm pale buttercup yellow, and the wooden balcony extended down into the common room properly, revealing it to be a large circular room with half-moon windows across the ceiling to let natural light stream into the room, but also possessing stained glass windows depicting tulips and other flowers.

A tree grew on top of the large fireplace, branches stretching out across the room and ceiling, the stain-glass windows set deep into the stone to make space for blankets and cushions. Sofas and armchairs filled the room around various tables, huge cushions that could be sat on were piled up in the corner, and large wine barrels were filled to bursting with plants in almost every corner.

“What do you think, Harry lad?” the Professor asked cheerfully as they went down the stairs and he saw that the dormitories descended further beneath the wooden balcony. “Since most of your classes will be with the fifth years, we've taken the liberty of adding you to their dormitory, oh not to worry, I've already had a little word with them and the lads are delighted to have you. Best to be prepared for a lot of well-meaning assistance hm,” he chortled as he escorted Harry through the boys corridor and took him to one of the dormitories towards the back.

He hadn't seen what the sleeping spaces were like for Slytherin or Ravenclaw, but stepping into the Hufflepuff room he instantly wondered how different they would be to Gryffindor because this? This was pretty different.

There wasn't much space in the tower, the boys all slept in the one room with very little space between their narrow cot-like fourposters. Hufflepuff apparently had the space to spread out, which wasn't surprising in all honesty given how they were underground. But the circular little room with its log burner was still a surprise. The central space was small, large enough for them all to gather probably, but not enough for furniture or bedding, surrounding it were little knooks, each closed off via a curtain, inside each knook was a bed and a desk, and another half-moon window.

Some of the knooks were open, revealing messy desks, dirty clothes, Quidditch posters, motivational muggle posters and propaganda, pictures from home, a broomstick, a sleeping cat who yawned, eyed them and then rolled over onto its back to continue sleeping in the sunbeam. There were less plants in here, but Harry kind of liked the plants and would probably bring one into his own room – six years of living with Neville and it would have felt kind of weird without _some_ form of plant-life nearby.

“This is you, Harry lad,” Professor Groom announced, presenting him to the empty knook to the right of the door. “Put your trunk down and I'll show you where to find the toilets and the bath-hall and then I'll take you to the Great Hall for some of the best nosh in Britain!”

The toilets were also drowning in potted plants but Harry couldn't find it in himself to complain – they smelt loads better than the boys' toilet in Gryffindor because of it. Unlike Ron and Seamus, he wasn't nose-blind to the reek of five teenage boys living together in a small space, some of whom having questionable hygiene habits _Seamus_.

The _bath-hall_ though.

The complaint about why the hell _Gryffindor_ didn't have anything this nice stuck hard and fast in the back of his throat as they went down a few steps and he looked around the asian styled bath-hall with the huge steaming communal bath-tubs, the lowered showerheads, stools, and multitude of buckets, the flowerbeds and bamboo privacy screens, everything in coppers, brass, wood, with plenty of plants, fluffy white and yellow towels with black accents here and there.

“I could get used to this,” he managed to choke out instead of anything else.

Professor Groom beamed and then ushered him out of the Common Room and to the kitchens, winking conspiratorially that it would probably be a little overwhelming to meet the whole house at once, so just this _one time_ , they would dine in the kitchens.

After so long of living off what they could scrounge together in that tent, often times going hungry because there just wasn't enough, Harry could have _cried_ as he got his first taste of Hogwarts cooking since he left the castle at sixteen and knew he would never return. Not that the food in Germany was _bad!_ No, it wasn't. But it also wasn't _home_.

So he ate, and he swallowed back his tears along with his food, and thought back to his friends, to the future he left behind, and how they were safe now. Yes, there would be tears over his disappearance, but with Voldemort dead, and the Death Eaters unmasked, they had the chance to build anew. The future would be a better, brighter place. And yes, he was sad that he wouldn't be able to see it, but he had spent weeks in Germany dealing with the Ministries as they tried to butter him up coming to terms with his new circumstances. The universe as he knew it hadn't unravelled due to this drastic change, so the odds were he had gone a step to the left rather than directly back in time. His friends and family were fine.

Harry had walked to his death in the Forbidden Forest with no expectation of return.

He had already bid them goodbye in his heart of hearts, and moved onto the next Great Adventure.

His just happened to be a little more literal than spiritual this instance.

They ate, and then Professor Groom took him back to the Hufflepuff Commons, this time expecting him to knock them in and, Harry honestly....

“You need better security, Professor,” he lamented as he opened the way.

The portly little man laughed, “Harry lad, Hufflepuff is meant to _welcome_ anyone who wants to learn magic. Knocking before you come in is just polite,” he pointed out as they went in and.... huh.... Harry had never actually thought of it like that. Hufflepuff _was_ about acceptance so... why would they care if students from another house could come in? Like Professor Groom said, knocking was just polite.

It was a bit of a shame that the high-ideals of the Founders weren't possible anymore with the current political climate.

They took seats near to the fireplace where it was warmer, and the Professor asked him about what classes he was interested in, which drew his mind away from worrying about the up-coming meeting with his new dorm-mates. He admitted to being pretty good at Defence, a casualty of necessity which had the man nodding sadly but smiling at his 'pluck', expressing surprise that he hadn't gone to Gryffindor.

Harry blushed hotly and admitted that he'd asked for Hufflepuff instead, he just... he just wanted to get on with his life, keep his head down, and find his place in the world. He was tired of fighting.

The door to the Common Room burst open in a cacophony of noise and voices, making Harry almost jump out of his skin and immediately go for his wand, before the Professor could answer, and it took a moment for his heart rate to come down from the ceiling where it had jumped. Then the students noticed them and cheerful greetings were shouted over the general hubbub to their head of house along with questions over what he was doing there, who Harry was, and it wasn't them honest, it was David's fault, hey no it wasn't you bloody nark!

Harry found himself smiling a little out of reflex, relaxing at the familiar sound of students who were happy and healthy, who were full of good food, and felt _safe_.

It was something he hadn't heard since his fourth year.

He had almost forgotten what it sounded like. Even if it wasn't _quite_ the same, what with it being the 1940's.

Laughter and yelling rang out throughout the Common Room as the students found places for themselves to sit or stand, clustered up with their friends or family members, Harry even spied a handful of red and blue ties amidst the sea of yellow and tried not to be surprised. He knew Hufflepuff was accepting, but it still managed to be a surprise to him.

Professor Groom only laughed and chattered with his students until he decided that enough of them were present before raising a hand for attention. It took a few, but eventually the noise level died down and all eyes turned to them.

“As I'm sure you've all noticed by now, we have a new den-brother amongst us. Allow me to introduce Harry Evans, he comes to us from Europe following a rather harrowing experience being hunted by the Dark Lord. As such, he had unfortunately missed the last few years of his education, so, while he may rightly belong with our seventh years, I have asked that our fifth years take him in and they have most graciously agreed to open their den to him. A round of applause for your brothers!” he called, bringing his hands together to clap for the fifth year boys dormitory, a sentiment that was echoed throughout the house with a few cheers thrown in, and a wolf-whistle for flavour. Harry snorted against his will, immediately thinking of Lee Jordan or the twins.

“Now, as I've mentioned, the last two years have not been _kind_ to Mister Evans, so I would hope that everyone here in Hufflepuff treats him with the kindness he has missed out on. Arrangements have been made for tutoring to get him up to snuff, but I'm sure he would welcome any help anyone is willing to share. Harry lad, anything you'd like to share with us all?” he asked, turning to the former Gryffindor who swallowed and looked around the sea of curious but welcoming faces.

“Uh, sure, thanks. Uh... I really like quidditch so if anyone's up for an informal game please let me know? Um, also, I'm pretty good at Defence so in exchange for helping me, I'll help you too?” he offered awkwardly.

“What's your team?!” someone shouted from the back of the Common Room, prompting laughter and something that made the speaker yelp in pain.

Harry laughed a little sadly, “My friend would never forgive me if I didn't say the Chudley Cannons, but I've always liked Puddlemore United to be honest.”

And like that, all tension broke as everyone began to loudly lambaste him about the Cannons and Puddlemore while more quidditch talk went around, and eventually the other fifth year boys and girls made their way over to introduce themselves properly.

“Cor,” one of the boys exclaimed, frowning at him with poorly hidden concern, “When was th' last time choo ate anyfink but windy puddin'?” he demanded.

W-windy pudding?

“Uh....”

“He's asking when the last time you ate something was,” one of the girls explained, practically shoving the skinny boy to one side, “Peter doesn't talk like a normal human being, he's from the East End. I _think_ 'windy pudding' means nothing, right?” she asked, looking at him curiously and receiving a grumpy nod from the boy in question. “I'm Pomona Sprout by the way,” the girl announced cheerfully, grinning at him and _oh._ He could see the resemblance with that smile now, the apple cheeks and the nose.

“N-nice to meet you,” he managed to get out, trying desperately not to think about how _weird it was_ to see his Herbology teacher as a girl _younger_ than him now.

She also seemed to be something of a force of nature in their year group and quickly took over introducing everyone. Of the fifth year girls there was her, Alice Roberts, Charity Dingle, Joanne Brown, Hyacinth Lewis-Stempel, and Gloria Owens. Of the boys, there was the afore mentioned Peter Burrows, John Warner, Bobby Carrow (“Not related to _those_ Carrows!” he was quick to inform), and Lorcan Prewitt.

“You'll get used to the way Peter talks eventually,” Lorcan told him cheerfully as they shook hands quite formally. “He usually starts toning down the mudblood talk by the time Christmas rolls around.”

Harry blinked, unsure if he heard that right. Did he just.... use the word 'mudblood'?

“'en't my fault yoos living in clover,” Peter scoffed and folded his arms, “Charity knows what's gammon, ye?” he demanded, looking at the skinny ginger haired girl who nodded shortly with a scowl.

“Mebbe ye could try talkin' less like ye've got a silver spoon up yer backside instead'a – ” she began in a rolling Irish accent before Pomona interrupted.

“Oh can we not fight right now? It's hardly giving Harry a good impression!” she objected, planting her hands on her hips and frowning disapprovingly at them both.

Harry meanwhile looked somewhat warily at Bobby Carrow who seemed to be the more down to earth of the boys, “Is – using that word common?” he asked warily. Bobby blinked at him with blue-grey eyes in confusion. Harry flushed, “The 'm' word. Is that used often? Only, I was always told it was _really_ horrible to use.”

He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, “I suppose if you think about it, yeah, it's pretty derogatory. But it is common. I didn't realise it was frowned on in Europe.”

The former Gryffindor shook his head, “It probably isn't, but my family hated it.”

Bobby shrugged, “Well, it gets thrown around a lot. Just to warn you,” he stated dismissively, and a part of Harry felt incredibly uncomfortable to see it, especially since he could tell that the word had probably bothered both Peter and Charity at one point but they'd gotten so used to hearing it that it wasn't worth the fight anymore. He wondered if it was the same kind of thing as when Mrs Figg slipped up from time to time and used the word 'negro' only to quickly correct herself and tell him never to repeat that word to anyone again. 'It's a bad word and I'm an old woman with bad habits she can't seem to break no matter how hard she tries'.

He was going to have to remind himself that this was the 1940's and that for all the wizarding world was a stagnant limping and traditionalist world that resisted change as though it were a plague, it _did_ change and improve with time. Unwillingly dragged forward by the younger generation and the influx of muggleborns and the need to hide from their non-magical counterparts.

They went onto talking about his quidditch position, to which there was a lot of excitement at his being a Seeker as the Hufflepuff seeker actually graduated last year. Quidditch try-outs were actually at the end of the week, if he was any good he should definitely give it a shot, otherwise they might end up having to sub-in Joseph Weeks again, and he got air-sick.

He learned that Peter was definitely muggleborn, Charity was actually half-blood, her mother was muggleborn but she had married her childhood muggle sweetheart who was now a soldier fighting abroad in the Navy. Gloria Owens was also muggleborn, as was John Warner. Locan Prewitt, Pomona Sprout, and Joanne Brown were all purebloods, while Alice Roberts, Hyacinth Lewis-Stempel were all half/mixed blood raised in the magical world. Harry confessed to being Halfblood who was raised muggle but very isolated, hence why he didn't understand the slang, or act with the comportment that everyone around him did. So he was sorry if he offended anyone ahead of time, it was absolutely not intended.

Eventually, Professor Groom bade everyone good night and advised them to head to bed sooner rather than later, which was a damn good idea because Harry was _tired_. It had been a long day.

Heading to their dormitory, he listened to the boys as they joked and mouthed off to one another which kind of reinforced his realisation that teenage boys were often the same no matter what house they were in as he heard a couple of 'your mother' styled jokes being bandied about. John Warner was apparently a talker in his sleep so he was advised to put a silencing charm on his curtains, and Lorcan spent forever in the bathroom first thing in the morning so they didn't exactly go down to breakfast particularly early. If he wanted to go early, he was better off heading out and meeting up with the girls.

Harry nodded and admitted he would probably have to go over his timetable with Professor Groom first thing so he would head out with them if it was alright. Peter yawned something like an agreement and Harry was pretty sure he agreed to join them before he shuffled to the toilets to sort himself out.

Alone in his cubby, Harry eyed his trunk and decided to unpack tomorrow.

He kicked it open, rummaged his nightclothes out, his bag of toiletries, shuffled to the bathroom where he joined the various boys in brushing their teeth, shaving, washing their faces, hands, etc, before heading off to bed properly.

The walls around him were too plain, he decided as he stared up at the ceiling, he would have to do some redecorating when he unpacked too.

* * *

Nightmares woke him up around the 4am mark, as to be expected, but at least he got a minimum of six hours sleep, so he dragged himself up and went to the bath-hall for a scrub down and soak, taking a moment to relax in the unfamiliar surroundings and appreciate the quiet. It also gave him a chance to think, or stew, on his thoughts and what he should do now.

It was such a strange, almost out of body, experience to be back at Hogwarts after having been away for so long, almost like he wasn't _allowed_?

But he was here none the less, and at least he could use that discomfort to portray himself as new to the castle even better. He would have to stick with his housemates for the first two weeks, just to hide the fact that he was familiar with the building, and spend evenings when he wasn't at tutoring 'exploring'. Maybe he could get a head-start on recreating the Marauder's Map and pass it down to his father instead of the other way around? He huffed a grin and sank down in the gloriously hot water, sinking down until it was up to his ears and bleeding heat into his back.

Then there was the tutoring to consider.

All the Prefects would be chipping into help him, which meant bringing him into close contact with Tom Riddle who, he was fairly sure, was not Head Boy yet. That was going to be an interesting one to handle.

He felt a small impression of uncertainty and a plea for kindness, and flushed.

“Could you _not_ spy on me in the bath?” he muttered, of course with his mouth under the waterline all that happened was a bunch of bubbles coming out, but he got the impression of dry amusement and something that was definitely mockery. “Oi, I'm not the one that had a problem with stalking little boys. There were _many_ jokes about that obsession of yours. Just because no one had the balls to say it to your face didn't mean they probably didn't think about it,” he pointed out as he surfaced properly and rolled his head back, squinting to try and get a glimpse of the presence properly. And if he drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, well that was no one's business but his own. He might trust Tom's presence not to harm him, letting him see him naked was a different kettle of fish.

Indignation and revulsion resounded and he saw the man's form shimmer into view, he definitely looked human, but he also definitely looked around Dumbledore's age too. It was weird to think that if he hadn't delved into the Dark Arts or fractured his soul he would have actually been a silver fox but the proof was floating right in front of him, somehow having managed to retain or rebuild his good looks in death. But he was scarred, _horribly_ so. And despite being a ghostly opaque blue-white instead of the usual greyish opalescence of a regular ghost, those scars glowed delicate gold. _Familiar_ gold, he realised, his mind flickering back to the colour of the polyjuice potion that everyone took in Privet Drive to transform into him.

The patchwork of his horcruxes being stitched together by the piece that Harry held with him.

“ _I have not, and will never, be interested in little boys, Potter,_ ” Tom Riddle objected irritably.

Harry meanwhile merely raised an eyebrow and smirked at him, “Oh? So you won't appreciate the teenage girl comparison?” the look of flabbergasted confusion and offence on his face was hilarious and he couldn't stop himself from grinning as he began to count on his fingers, “You have a diary, a tiara, a special cup, a favourite ring, your mother's locket, a precious pet, and a strange obsession with a famous teenage boy – ”

The outrage and embarrassment he could feel radiating from the man was too much, he broke down into hysterical laughter and had to smother it in both hands so it wouldn't end up echoing out through the pipes and waking his housemates.

“ _I should have just thrown you out of the window that night. Why didn't I think of that? Why did I have to be so wretchedly dramatic?_ ” he complained grumpily, and Harry wasn't quite sure how to feel about that. Were they really in a position that they could joke about that night? The spirit noticed his silence and slid dark eyes down towards him with a slightly apologetic look, “ _Too soon?_ ” he asked carefully, discomfort and apology and guilt rolled into one.

Harry sighed, “Complicated. I'll get back to you on that,” he decided as he sat up straight. “Also... What do I call you? I can't just use your name, not with your younger self running around, that'd get weird.”

There was a silence, and he felt the man's presence move as he leaned against the wooden side of the bath. “ _I would have thought you called me Voldemort, after everything,_ ” he mused and Harry shrugged a bare shoulder in the water, rocking forward and back in the water a little.

“But that isn't who you are anymore. I can't look at you and see him anymore.”

“ _But I was him_.”

“You were. And he has had his place and he has had his time.” He stopped rocking and looked up at the ceiling, at the lazily drifting steam that was probably climbing from his shoulders as he had crawled into the hottest bath-tub there, his skin stained pink and his fingernails aching with the heat, and he relished it. “I refuse to give him any more power over me and my choices. You were him. An aeon ago. A thousand miles and ages and a lifetime ago. We are all the same in death, humbled and small. You put yourself back together, your scars shine gold, and I see no red in your eyes. You aren't him. You are his death.”

Silence stretched between them and all he could sense from the man was a closed off feeling of rapid emotion, dampened and complicated and changing too fast for him to identify any one emotion over another before eventually his presence opened up once more, decided, relief, affection, admiration, _awe_ , and something so bittersweet it left a tang in his mouth and made his saliva glands clench and water.

“ _Then call me whatever you wish_.”

Harry was terrible at naming things. Absolutely awful but....

“Timmy.”

Both the _expression_ and _sensation_ of someone sucking lemons flooded the room and he cracked up again at the absolute disgust and reluctant amusement from the man, coloured with a healthy dose of 'no fucking way' that didn't even need to be spoken.

Well, it wasn't like anyone in this time would get the reference, and he doubted Voldemort had much time for things like movies.

“Vader. It's... a good fit.” A man who was once good who became evil and then found that good again when someone refused to give up on him, when they reached out to him again and again. And in the end it was death that they found their peace again. He craned his head over to him, “It suits you.”

Plus he was just as much of a drama queen as the Sith Lord had been, and just as feared.

If Tom could sense the direction Harry's thoughts had gone in, he didn't show it, only hmmed and looked thoughtful.

“ _If you say so. But I will want the story behind it some day. It is a very... heavy name,_ ” he concluded and Harry huffed a half smile.

“And Voldemort isn't?”

“ _Touché._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **SLANG CORNER**  
>  _Cor_ : General exclamation, bit like wow or whoa  
>  _Windy Pudding_ : Eating nothing but air  
>  _Living in Clover_ : The high-life, fancy living, well off  
>  _Gammon_ : Chatter/Nonsense
> 
> Yes, Harry just named Voldemort Darth Vader, lmao, kind of appropriate given their respective histories though. Most of the characters in this chapter are OCs, apart from Slytherins there isn't much known about students in other houses for this era so there's a bit of flexibility for me here. Harry is going to cry when he encounters the brooms of this era. Poor boy.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING:** Mention of medical atrocity in WW2, little bit of poking fun at Catholicism

It was so weird to wear a yellow uniform instead of the more familiar Gryffindor red. Like a strange betrayal but at the same time he thought of Tonks, of Cedric, of Suzy, it made him think of Ernie and Justin. He thought of Neville whom everyone thought belonged in Hufflepuff only for him to prove he really was a lion beneath all his doubts. He thought of Malfoy who had seemed to be the quintessential Slytherin but had faced against Dark Wizards and sold his soul to demons for his parents. He thought of Ron who was the perfect Gryffindor, who ran away in fear and _came back_ out of loyalty. He thought of Narcissa Malfoy, her whisper, her love for her son, and her bravery as she stood and told the Dark Lord a bald-faced lie, looking him straight in the eye as she did so. He thought of Hermione who stayed with him through thick and thin who was brave and brilliant but never would anyone have thought 'Hufflepuff' – but was everything they held in high esteem.

The house of left-overs? No.

Home.

Hufflepuff was the only house that was a home, hold itself to neither lofty principles or false pretences. It was a home before it was a legacy, a duty, or a label.

Shame it took him far too long and far too many near death experiences to understand that.

He smiled a little as Peter grabbed his school bag and lead him out of the dormitory to find the girls waiting for them. Charity flashed them a snaggle-toothed grin before they headed up to breakfast, punching Peter in the arm before they were off chattering about how long it was going to take before the muggle war was over now that Old Grindel wasn't pulling strings behind the scenes. He tried not to seem like he knew where he was going, and found himself a little amused by how bossy Pomona was as she dictated where everything was on their short walk up to the Great Hall, her shiny Prefect's pin placed very obviously on her robes. He got a few glances from the upper years, but like Professor Groom said, new students were hardly uncommon in the current climate.

The Great Hall was half-full, sleepy students getting stuck into their food, people loading up on hot drinks and porridge and other things to fend off the early December chill. Snow hadn't yet hit Hogwarts, but it was pretty much only a matter of time, he could hear idle speculation about whether or not they would need to dig out the Greenhouses this year from one of the upper years they passed. He'd heard that there had been unusual snow-fall in London during this particular period of time and just before, but he hadn't thought Scotland faced feet of snowfall in the double-digits, or at least he'd never heard of it.

He sat down with Peter and the girls and started loading up on hot food, spotting a large kettle and a box of teabags not too far away. It was kind of reflex at this point to levitate the two over so he could make himself a cup of tea. It was only when they were down that Charity elbowed him.

“Ye shouldn' do that,” she warned with a wrinkled nose, “Professors don' like magic bein' used in the Great Hall.”

He'd actually forgotten. When tensions in the tent had gotten to breaking point and no one could stand talking to each other it was just _easier_ to use magic to get things from the far end of the table rather than bother one another. Everyone around him looked exhausted and he hadn't wanted to bother them over something as small as just wanting a cup of tea.

“I'll bear it in mind,” he said with a small smile at her.

He got another snaggle-toothed grin before she dug into the tea herself.

Harry went for the peppermint tea.

It had been too difficult to get hold of milk while they had been on the run, not to mention keep it fresh, so when they went on a food run Harry had gathered up a selection of teas that were supposed to be drunk _without_ milk. He'd come to quite like both lemon and peppermint teas while away.

“Harry lad, good morning,” Professor Groom greeted as he bounced his way down the aisle between house tables.

He couldn't help but smile a little behind his cup as the professor's fluffy silver hair moved like a cloud around his head – and bounced with him. “Morning, sir.”

“How was your first night in Hufflepuff? Did you sleep well, any problems?” he asked cheerfully.

He shook his head, “No, sir, it was very comfortable, thank you.”

“Marvellous! Well, Harry lad, here is your timetable. Unfortunately we had to do some _jiggery pokery_ regarding your timetable to ensure you had the slots available to attend the third year classes. You'll be the only Hufflepuff in a few of them unfortunately, but not to worry, our fifth year Prefects are on the case! You'll be in excellent hands, lad!” the man proclaimed cheerily as he presented Harry with his timetable

“Thank you sir,” he said as he accepted it. Odd man out again, huh? Oh well, he decided as he examined it. His timetable was.... a bit of a mess actually, wow.

He had wondered if he was going to need a timeturner to attend all of his lessons as he had taken two more electives than he had last time, he knew both Percy and Hermione had done so, but while Percy had been advised by his parents to set extra time aside for sleep and unwinding, Hermione had not been given such self-care advice, and instead taken the dire warnings not to abuse her privileges to heart and burnt herself out. Too many working hours, not enough rest, on top of their typical yearly shenanigans. He felt a stab of remorse that he had been one of the contributing factors to her loss. She had really wanted to obtain all twelve of her OWLs.

But no, unlike in the future, there was a considerable _lack_ of double lesson periods. Lesson hours were a bit longer though, 8am to 6pm. He had two double lesson periods a day instead of the three he had come to know, so despite the increase in subjects his class schedule seemed fairly balanced. Only one day had three double periods and that was the Saturday where classes didn't begin until 10am.

He heard Professor Groom give Peter and Pomona his gratitude for taking care of him and off he bounced, Charity at least had the good grace to wait until he was gone before peering over his shoulder and pulling a face.

“Potions with Slytherin an' Gryffindor, which Prof did'ye get mad t'deserve tha'?” she asked. “Those two houses get on abou' as well as cats an' dogs. Jest keep yer head down an' ye should manage.”

Potions with Slytherin, like he'd never done that before. “It should be alright. It isn't like they'll sabotage my potion,” he decided. He wasn't Harry Potter the Boy Who Lived, he was just Harry Evans, random unknown Hufflepuff. No one was going to _care_ about him enough to mess with him, the realisation was exhilarating.

The only downside would be Riddle.

Which Harry still didn't have a concrete plan for dealing with him yet. He could call him on his shit, but that would just make him a target, and he was _tired_. He didn't particularly want to do the dance of death with him again. He wouldn't have the luxury of Tom underestimating him at this point like Vader had. On the other hand, he had future knowledge, and a hell of a lot more experience than Tom Riddle did at the moment, and without a maniacal Dark Lord fucking with him every year he might actually get a _decent_ education. They would finally be stood on an even playing field.

He felt a sting of amusement from Vader, and the distinct air of polite disbelief on top of... self-directed pity?

Did he feel sorry for his younger self?

Agreement echoed around him even as Peter shoved a few more sausages onto his plate and scolded him for not eating enough, there was enough rationing in England, 'en't no need for it here, fill yer boots Evans! Agreement turned into amusement and wistfulness coloured with mild envy, but whether that was over the food or the interactions Harry didn't know, and wasn't sure he was ready to find out, or if Vader was ready to explore himself.

It looked like he would be the only Hufflepuff in Potions (Gryffindor and Slytherin, and here he'd thought they would be intelligent and not put them together around volatile ingredients), Defence (Slytherin and Ravenclaw), and Herbology (Gryffindor and Ravenclaw). Potions, Charms, Defence, and Astronomy would all be with Slytherin. With Riddle. Oh boy, that was going to be some very _not fun_ lessons, he decided before grimacing when he realised he even had a scheduled tutoring period after dinner every evening, Monday to Friday. Slytherin in Thursdays. Of his electives, only Care of Magical Creatures would be done with the fifth years, everything else was with the third years, which was fine. It was probably a bit arrogant, but he was fairly sure he would push ahead in Duelling.

Actually, he would probably be awful in Duelling. There were points and rules in formal Duelling, right? It was the magical equivalent form of fending after all. Harry was most _assuredly_ not a structured combatant. Experience dictated that if they were armed and able to move then they were a threat and it was no holds barred. Well, that was a failing grade he snickered to himself as he tucked his timetable away and looked at Charity.

“Think you can point me to a friendly Gryffindor to take me down to potions?” he asked hopefully.

She nodded and downed the last of her orange juice, roughly wiping her mouth, “'Course. Antoinette Lacroix was new last year, she won' mind bein' yer guide. She's nice, but don' ask abou' why she's here an' not at Beauxbatons,” the ginger haired girl warned seriously as they headed to the Gryffindor table and a group of fifteen year olds. “Netty, can I ask ye a favour?” she asked, calling attention from a rather plain faced blonde girl with admittedly lovely blue eyes. Harry was actually impressed. Those were the kinds of eyes that poetry could be written about.

“Oui?” the girl asked warily, eyes flickering to Harry and back.

Charity gestured a thumb at him, “This here's Harry Evans, new Hufflepuff student. He's missed th' last few years o'schoolin' so his timetable is all higgle-dee-piggle-dee. Would ye kindly help him find his way t'Potions?” she asked hopefully.

Antoinette looked at him suspiciously, “May I see your timetable?” she asked, her accent no where near as thick as he expected.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, rummaging it out for her to see.

She summed in surprise as her eyes flickered across his timetable, “You are taking 'ealing wiz the third years?” she blurted, looking up.

He shrugged, “I picked up a little from books but I wanted to see how a class would be. It seemed useful, better to know something than nothing.”

She nodded seriously, “Good. You are smarter than most boys. If you 'ave questions I will be 'appy to answer zem. Come, I will take you to Potions,” she declared as she got to her feet and gathered her bag.

How abrupt. Harry grinned a little, he got the feeling she was a bit like Suzy and did not suffer fools lightly. “Thank you.” She just hummed in response and Charity laughed, slapping his back.

“See ye in History o' Magic. Follow everyone up t'the Entrance Hall, I'll come and get ye before lesson starts,” she promised.

“Thanks Charity.”

* * *

Slughorn was.... _different_.

Which, he supposed fifty years and a wizarding war where his old students came to try and kill him could do that to a man. He was no where near as rotund as he had been as a young man, his moustache was ginger and brown and neatly maintained, nothing like the huge silver walrus like monstrosity he had prior. He even had hair. Harry had no idea the man was brunet but there it was. Combed and waxed into a painfully neat parting which, he supposed, was the current fashion trend (he would literally rather eat half of the ingredients in this room raw than allow his hair to look anything like it). His robes were near black velvet with silver buttons, cut in what Harry supposed was the height of fashion for the era judging by the quiet noise of appreciation from the French girl beside him as they filed into the room.

Slughorn beamed to see him, “Mister Evans, lovely, lovely, take a seat over beside Tom there. I've asked him to take care of you for the foreseeable future in regards to your potioneering. You'll be in excellent hands,” he declared cheerfully, gesturing at Harry to stand beside the both the last person he wanted anything to do with and the main reason he had apparently appeared in the past.

His smile was stiff and awkward as he went to stand beside the Slytherin who gave him one of those naturally charming smiles of his – it would have been very easy to be taken in by them. Even his _eyes_ crinkled happily to see him as he extended a hand. “Tom Riddle. Pleasure to meet you, Harry was it?” he asked almost gently.

Harry could not pin-point what it was that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end because his poker face was fantastic, he was absolutely masterful, it was probably that Harry already knew he was a viper. But he had been bitch slapping snakes since he was eleven and took the handshake firmly, a little surprised by how _soft_ and _cold_ his hand was as they shook. “That's right,” he said, “What would you prefer I call you? First name or last?” he asked simply, letting him go in order to unpack his text book and equipment.

He felt Vader's surprise and then approval tickle at the back of his neck.

Tom had obviously never been asked that question either because he paused for a little too long for it to be staged, “Tom is fine,” he finally managed to get out, his voice light but – oh, Harry knew that tone. He had forgotten how much the young Voldemort hated his birth name. It must be like pulling fingernails to tell someone to call him that when they asked him what he preferred.

He was tempted to call him on it but – actually, what the fuck did he care?

“Don't force yourself. I think the temperature just dropped. Got a nickname or something you'd prefer?” he asked, again without looking up as he set everything up, various students moving around and talking throughout the room masking their conversation as the room filled. Annoyingly the house divide remained untouched, and both Harry and Tom were the only mixed house table – it was drawing attention as people noticed the unfamiliar face, along with the yellow trim.

“...Tom is fine,” he repeated a little more stiffly.

“Alright. Don't say I didn't offer,” he grunted.

“Do _you_ have a preferred nickname?” the Slytherin asked with just that little _edge_ of snideness to his tone that others may have missed.

“Saint Pothead of Facial Disfigurement,” he retorted instantly and he _felt_ the spiritual equivalent of a spit-take come from Vader, even as he heard Tom Riddle choke on air.

“I beg your pardon?” he practically snapped.

Harry grinned, “Sorry, sorry. Didn't realise you were a bible thumper, no offence,” he apologised.

Any retort Riddle may have had to that was cut off as Slughorn called attention and set them their potion for the day. Today they were making Burn-healing paste. Harry hummed as he examined the instructions that Professor Slughorn had put up on the board, something was niggling in the back of his head as his eyes scanned the ingredients.

Now, Harry knew the instructions on the board and even in their books weren't the best – Snape proved that by leaving all those notes in his own potions text (also, seriously, that thing was twenty years out of date, WHY was it still in use?!). He had _also_ seen that with even a little application of muggle knowledge that magic became _that_ much easier, Hermione didn't have a lot of power behind her spells, but because she knew how they worked and the science behind a lot of the effects she was going for, she had yet to find a spell she wasn't able to master. It was one of the few things she bragged about in that tent after Ron left them, when her mood was dark and lonely, when her mouth would quiver dangerously in ways that made his stomach flip and clench in pain.

She _also_ mentioned something about _cauldrons_ and the properties of metal and – he remembered reading about that in the healing text book yesterday!

He dove for his bag, ignoring Slughorn's preaching and the frown Tom threw at him as he surfaced with the healing text he got the other day and flipped through to the section about healing potions and balms.

Copper had antibacterial properties. Burns were famous for infections. Silver may have been traditionally for healing potions but it even highlighted in the texts that for burn-salves copper red cauldrons were best because of the magical symbolism of the colour red (really? Really they were bringing colour symbolism into healing? If he saw one word about 'humours' he was going to slap a bitch).

Slughorn released them and Harry nodded to himself, “Can you get us a copper cauldron from the cupboard?” he asked, examining a few other lines in the book before closing it.

“The board says pewter,” Tom pointed out sceptically.

“Board is wrong. Healing book says copper. Muggle science says copper. Go get the copper cauldron. If you get a bad mark, blame me,” he stated and made a shooing motion at him before heading to the ingredient cupboard.

The quality of the ingredients in Slughorn's cupboard would have made Snape weep. Like. Seriously. He was quick to snatch the best quality ingredients he could manage before heading back where he laid them out on his chopping board. Riddle returned – with a copper cauldron, looking intensely curious.

“And why exactly did you demand a copper cauldron?” he asked as he set the vessel down on top of their fire, filled with the required amount of water.

“Ever wonder why muggles have copper doorhandles and pitchers?” he asked rhetorically as he examined the paste instructions they'd been given step by step and cross-referenced it with his healing book, thinking hard back on his old science classes in junior school. “Copper is naturally antibacterial. Burns are notoriously dangerous not just because of the damage they do, but also because of the insanely high risk of infection. Any kind of paste or ointment needs to take that into account. It's one of the few healing potions that _doesn't_ use a silver cauldron. Here, chop these daisy roots, as finely as you can please. The more surface area they have to react to the honey the better.”

Tom nodded slowly, “Yes, and honey has been used since long before the Egyptians in medicine for its own antibacterial properties in remedies and poultices,” he agreed at length as he began chopping the roots carefully. “I can see you won't be needing my assistance in this class, Harry,” he praised with an odd smile.

He shrugged, “Probably will actually. The guy that taught me potions actually hated me. It wouldn't surprise me if he screwed me over.” Snape may have died doing the right thing, but that didn't absolve him of a lifetime doing the opposite, of a lifetime standing by the ideals of Death Eaters, of actively sabotaging the auror and healer numbers, of tormenting children – letting them be _tortured_ by the Carrows.

Riddle hummed, “I see.” There was a long moment of silence before, “Do you usually share your life's story with strangers?” he asked curiously.

The former Gryffindor cackled.

Oh god, if only he knew how much of his life story everyone knew more of compared to him!

* * *

Their potion got the highest mark in the class, and Harry received an invitation to the Slug Club that he turned down, politely citing that he had to catch up on his education first and foremost. It wouldn't do to embarrass the good Professor in front of his friends and former colleagues after all.

He followed a grumpy Antoinette up to the Great Hall, answering her sharp questions regarding his potion and what they did that made it a cut above her own. She was apparently studying to become a Healer in the future and was dedicated to obtaining Outstandings in her OWLs and NEWTs. Her reaction when he told her that muggle medicine gave him the idea to use a _copper_ cauldron and _why_ was interesting. She was probably a pureblood judging by the bewilderment and near-offence written across her face as she demanded how in Merlin's name the unwashed savages knew about that.

Explaining to her that muggle medical science was advancing rapidly to the point where they could remove an organ from one person and put it in another and have it work without using magic was not easy, and her outright horror at the very concept was confusing. Harry then had to pause and think twice as she bade him goodbye and headed to her own lesson while he waited for Charity or any other fifth year Hufflepuff to come and collect him.

When had the first organ transplants occurred?

He knew a lot of awful medical experimentation and medicinal advancements occurred during the Second World War, largely because many of them were practised and discovered via human testing on those poor bastards in the concentration camps. He could have sworn he remembered reading something about heart surgery being pioneered in the camps but he wasn't sure. His memory was a little bit fucked due to – well a lot of things.

“ _Well that could have gone better,_ ” Vader remarked drolly.

“Oh shut it. I'm terrible at talking to people,” he complained half-heartedly. How did the man expect him to behave? He was a _Gryffindor_ , and the man wanted him to play word games and manipulate his younger self who had grown up doing both as a form of self-defence in a world that didn't care for orphaned children in the middle of a war. How was he supposed to manipulate the Slytherin away from doing stupid ass shit when he didn't even know how to talk to or connect to him on a basic level? Fuck, he was a _Hufflepuff_ in this go-over. Tom Riddle didn't respect anything but strength and when he thought of that? Hufflepuff was definitely not the house that sprung to mind. Maybe he should have requested to go back to Gryffindor.... At least there he would have been able to meet the teenager as a kind of perceived equal-rival-whatever.

“ _The last thing I need at this age is someone to try and manipulate me, Harry,_ ” Vader pointed out, squeezing his shoulder, pressing a feeling of vague amusement and something complicated that felt like relief and support and faith against his mind. “ _You were the only one who wanted to save me for my own sake. My younger self may find that foolish, but he is not as far gone as I was, and you managed to reach me in the end. Just.... Try. I will do what I can on my end._ ”

He frowned, feeling a sting of alarm, “On your end?” he echoed, turning to frown at the empty air where the presence had been a moment ago.

“Harry!” Charity called from the staircase, he turned and she gestured at him to hurry up, “I hope ye run fast or we're gonna be late!”

He hefted his backpack and took off after her, feeling uncertainty churn in the pit of his stomach.

Just what was Vader going to do on _his_ end? He was _dead_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have had no energy for writing recently. Yay depression spirals. 
> 
> I'm picking myself back up though. I love writing too much to give it up even when I'm at my absolute lowest.


	5. Chapter 5

They got to History of Magic just in time, and the second Professor Binns showed up – the whole class started screaming.

Harry yelped, jolting out of his seat and grabbing his wand, looking around desperately for what set it off but – they were all looking at Professor Binns even as the spectral professor blinked owlishly at them. He – didn't look any different from usual?

“What's wrong?” he asked, peering at Charity who had gone three shades paler, both of her hands over her mouth in horror.

She goggled at him for a moment before wheezing and sucking in a breath, “He – he's _dead!_ ” she gasped, “Professor Binns – he's a _ghost!_ ”

And judging by the reactions of everyone in the room, that must have been a _recent_ change. Meaning Harry now had a room of panicking fifteen year old Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws who, World War 2 or not, had probably never encountered an actual death like this, not only that, but it also meant that there was now a dead body somewhere in the school quietly rotting away. Which was going to traumatise the house-elves something fierce if they came across it unprepared, or worse yet, another student, or teacher.

He flicked a _soronos_ at his throat and turned, “SETTLE DOWN!” he bellowed, cutting through the chaos of the room and silencing them in surprise. He removed the charm and looked at the pale child face of Professor Sprout, idly wondering in the back of his mind if this was why she avoided the History Professor in the future, “Can you go to the closest classroom and fetch a professor?” he asked before looking at the rest of his house, “Who's the other Prefect?” Lorcan raised his hand, “Go and fetch the nurse please. I think a few people here need a calming draught.”

Both Pomona and Lorcan nodded, quickly bolting out of the room with pale faces and shaking hands. He turned to the Ravenclaws, “Who are your prefects?” he asked, and then had an incredibly unpleasant realisation when he saw _Moaning Myrtle_ alive and well in the third row, looking pale and frightened, and yet again, on the verge of tears.

A black girl got to her feet along with a boy with curly floppy golden hair.

“Can one of you go to the headmaster's office, and the other get our respective heads of house?” he asked, and the two nodded jerkily before leaving as well. He looked at the other students uncertainly, “I guess this means a free period guys. But don't leave the room just yet, not until your heads of house allow it. If you've got homework I'd recommend making a start on it, a distraction might help you calm down. If you need any help with anything ask your friends and classmates.” Hopefully some normality might calm them the fuck down.

There was a moment of silence and then Myrtle burst into tears, making him wince, and then the noise level in the classroom exploded as everyone started talking and yelling, a few more girls crying and turning to their friends for comfort. Myrtle did no such thing, just continued to sob into her arms until he felt bad just looking at her. Carefully he worked his way around his housemates and squatted in front of her, ignoring everyone else as he reached up and patted her head.

“Hey, you alright?” he asked softly, pretending as though he didn't know her. “Do you need a minute outside?” he continued thinking back to Lavender and Hermione who hated crying in front of other people but how Lavender wanted them to _know_ she was upset and show that they cared even if it were in some small way, while Hermione just hated letting people see they'd gotten to her. He figured Myrtle would be a bit more like Lavender. She certainly seemed to enjoy the attention as a ghost, even though she preferred to find it by playing the victim and martyr.

The girl nodded tearfully and he gently encouraged her to her feet, and lead her out of the classroom to calm down in the corridor outside, conjuring a handkerchief to dry her eyes.

“Was Professor Binns your favourite?” he asked thoughtfully. It might have explained why she was crying so much at the moment of her death. Cho was a _water-fountain_ when she was upset, and he knew that a dead boyfriend was a vastly different thing from your favourite teacher, but for lonely little girls who were being bullied, having your favourite teacher die when you were at a boarding school could very well feel like a parent dying. Add to that he didn't doubt that some of Myrtle's nastier tormentors wouldn't hesitate to use this upset against her either. He watched as the fifteen year old nodded tearfully.

“I li-like History,” she hiccuped, “And Professor Binns – would always – answer my quest-questions,” she sniffled.

He patted her head again, “I doubt that will change.”

“B-But he's _deeeeeaaad!_ ” she wailed, bursting into fresh waterworks.

He grimaced, “I don't think that's going to stop him from teaching. I mean, his _ghost_ showed up today, didn't it?” he pointed out soothingly. This apparently didn't reassure her because she continued to cry into the handkerchief, leaving him to awkwardly pat her head a little more and wait until Pomona returned with an unfamiliar woman in dark purple robes.

“Mister Evans?” the new woman demanded sharply.

“Professor,” he greeted, giving Myrtle's head another pat before standing up to face her properly.

“Petra Callaghan. I teach Divination,” the woman introduced herself brusquely, before looking through the windowed doors at the spectral form of Professor Binns, her expression darkening. “Hmph, I owe you an apology Ms Sprout. I'm sorry I didn't believe you earlier,” she declared grimly.

“It's alright Professor,” the prefect dismissed miserably, “I wouldn't have believed it either,” she admitted.

“Petra,” another woman greeted, marching down the corridor with the school nurse and Lorcan trotting at their heels looking pale. The new woman was considerably older, thin, wearing silvery grey robes, her white hair pulled back under a matching witch's hat with a blue band. The nurse was considerably younger, Harry wouldn't have been surprised to learn that such a fresh faced young lady was actually a trainee at St Mungos.

“Galatea,” Professor Callaghan greeted briskly before looking to the nurse, “Healer McCammon.”

“M-morning,” the healer stuttered before glancing backwards at Lorcan, “Someone said something about a dead body?” she asked nervously.

“Yet to be found,” Harry interrupted grimly. “I asked Lorcan to get you to administer some calming draughts to the students, they're a bit shaken up.”

“And why aren't you?” Callaghan demanded, turning to him. He didn't _think_ she meant to be accusatory, that just seemed to be her personality, domineering and hard, which was a bit unusual for a Divination teacher – he would have thought her better suited to Transfiguration or Defence with a personality like that.

Harry just shrugged, “Not my first time dealing with dead bodies.”

She sniffed suspiciously before the lady in silver cleared her throat, “Let's focus on the students and worry about the particulars later,” she interrupted calmly before heading into the classroom without waiting for a response.

With the new Professors on the scene, it was quickly decided that everyone should return to their Common Rooms, Harry ended up earning Hufflepuff a cumulative fifty points for his actions from various Professors as everything was handled and more of them showed up. Professor Groom gathered up the Hufflepuffs, a very hairy man who introduced himself as Professor McLeod collected the Ravenclaw students. Harry managed to slip their attention by being as helpful as possible in cleaning up after his fellow students, assisting the nurse in passing out chocolate and calming draughts, making sure everyone left with a friend on their way back to the common rooms, and answering the Professors' questions. It was almost strange how differently they handled the incident compared to his own time.

They were all so panicked and uncertain, or perhaps he was just old enough to identify the stress lines on their faces now?

Either way, them panicking here in the classroom wasn't resolving an awful lot, so he recommended they head to the staff room where Professor Binns claimed he had fallen asleep last he knew. They made their way there, Harry easily ushering his disembodied professor along with them as the Headmaster and Deputy Headmaster finally caught up, Dippet looking stricken while Dumbledore hesitated, his expression turning grim. It was a very strange group of teachers and him that intruded upon the staff room where they found the dead body of one Cuthbert Binns, looking as though he had fallen asleep in front of the fire last night, his eyes half open and his expression peaceful.

Harry frowned, folding his arms as they all clustered around the body, murmuring mournfully and shaking their heads. Something stank, and not just physically since Professor Binns' bowels had relaxed upon his death, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

Ghosts.... didn't come about accidentally, or rather, they weren't supposed to? Poltergeists were something else entirely. And now that he thought about it, Nearly Headless Nick couldn't interact with the world at all, he'd needed to bribe Peeves to drop the Vanishing Cabinet. Meanwhile Moaning Myrtle could flood her bathroom at will, and Professor Binns could pick up chalk and books. Hell, until he walked into the room he didn't even realise he was _dead_ , which meant he had been opening doors without issue as well. He could interact with the world like Myrtle and Peeves, _unlike_ Nick and the Friar and the Baron.

“Professors...” he interrupted their laments over old age finally catching up to their colleague, frowning as he rubbed his chin, “I don't think this was old age,” he admitted slowly, frowning at the spectral Professor Binns with a growing uncomfortable feeling of trepidation.

“What on earth makes you think that?!” Dippet spluttered, looking flustered and edgy. Ah, yes, he too would be aware of what Harry had done and why he was at Hogwarts despite his age.

He gestured to the ghost and then to his body, “He's not a normal ghost. He can touch and move things. With the exception of poltergeists and ghouls, that shouldn't be possible. Since he isn't either of those things, then there's something strange about the way he died influencing his form. So what happened?” he asked, gesturing to the spirit who looked between them all and floated thoughtfully in place.

Professor Dumbledore looked incredibly disturbed while the silver robe clad woman, Professor Merrythought the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, frowned thoughtfully at him, “Any theories then, lad?” she asked pointedly, looking between the ghost and the body and Dippet's increasing uncomfortable expression (and silently absorbing the fact that the portly headmaster wasn't protesting or trying to remove the student in question, meaning he genuinely thought the boy knew what he was talking about and _respected_ his opinion, or feared it).

Harry examined the body carefully, “When my godfather died, I asked a local ghost if it were possible he might have become one,” he admitted, ignoring the way looks were exchanged and heads were bowed behind him. “He told me it wasn't possible because to leave a ghost it had to be cone on purpose through the use of spells and rituals to create the imprint and the tie. But I know one ghost who didn't. She was barely fifteen, killed purely by accident. And she came back as a ghost very similar to Professor Binns. Able to interact with things, open doors, manipulate objects. Things could even hit her. A poltergeist threw mouldy peanuts at her at a Death Day party we attended. But for Professor Binns to – ”

The Basilisk.

The Basilisk killed Myrtle, and she formed a ghost able to interact with the world like a poltergeist.

But what if that was how Professor Binns happened too? He was a ghost able to interact with the world like a poltergeist. Myrtle was aliv-

This was the year the Chamber of Secrets was opened.

“Oh hell,” he muttered with sudden realisation, and then tensed when he realised everyone was staring at him. He dragged a hand through his hair, he could deal with it again maybe, he knew what he would be going down to face, he'd dealt with it before. But this time there would be no convenient phoenix to save his ass. Admittedly if he timed it right, there would be no irritating Tom Riddle either. It would be both more dangerous and less dangerous. But there was also the fact that he couldn't exactly answer questions about how he knew it, or – well, Grindelwald was apparently famous for having an interest in dark creatures, maybe he could.... use that to his advantage?

No. He wanted a _quiet_ life, or as quiet as he could manage. That was why he requested his name not be known as the one who defeated Grindelwald, if he brought basilisks into the equation then – ugh, no. Nope. Nah'uh. He was going to have to bullshit this like Professor Trelawney's homework assignments.

“Dark magic did this,” he concluded firmly, swaying from foot to foot as he pressed his knuckles against his chin. “The kind though.... There are very few spells that kill without a physical sign, but they wouldn't cause a spirit. And there are a few dark creatures who can do the same, and they're even less likely to leave the body unharmed.” Or uneaten. He was actually surprised the basilisk _hadn't_ eaten him. Unless something startled him? Like, maybe a house-elf?

Had any of the elves been caught up? No one would have mentioned them as casualties in the last Chamber incident, so he didn't know for certain. He would have to ask. He hoped not.

Either way, he gave them no answers and as a whole they could find nothing to back his theory up – or deny it.

Professor Dumbledore took him back to Hufflepuff house and left him at the door. Harry waited until he left the corridor and immediately went to the kitchens instead.

Inside was the organised chaos he had come to expect it to be, and he found a spot out of the way to wait for – he didn't have to wait, the moment they realised he was there he was being swarmed by eager elves wanting to feed him up. Nothing much changed over the years. He was reminded of Dobby and mentally vows to put a quiet word in at the Ministry to push for better protections.

“Okay guys, I gotta ask you something,” he called over the small gaggle in front of him, squatting down to be on their eye-level, “Is anyone hurt? There was a death last night amongst the staff, and I know you guys do your work out of sight, are we all present and accounted for and healthy?” he asked. Talk went around for a moment, but thankfully it seemed that everyone was okay, all accounted for, Mipsy had a cold but was sleeping it off in her bed. He nodded, “Good. That's good. Okay, question number two: Who wants to help me deal with Slytherin's Monster?”

Looks of horror greeted him.

“I'm not asking you to fight, or be bait, or even go near it!” he quickly reassured them. “I'll do the dangerous stuff, promise. It's fine, I know what I'm doing, I just need a particularly sneaky elf to get some things for me.”

“What can wes be getting yous?” one of the younger elves asked slowly with great suspicion.

He ticked off his fingers, “A rooster for a start.”

The elf shook his head, ears flapping, “All the boy cluck-clucks is being killed, sir!”

He nodded, “I know. I want someone to go to a muggle farm and steal one for the afternoon,” he explained with a grin. “An especially noisy one if you can manage it. The monster is supposed to die when it hears a rooster crow. But just in case it doesn't work, I need someone to go and borrow the Sorting Hat for me. He'll have an artefact I can use to kill it, if he's willing to share.” Fucking Hat had better share that sword, just because Harry wasn't in Gryffindor robes anymore didn't make him any less a Gryffindor (and now a Hufflepuff too he supposed). He couldn't just go into the chamber and start throwing spells here, there, and everywhere. He was pretty sure it was under the lake for a start and he didn't want to die to the tune of thirty thousand tons of pressurised lake water falling on his head.

The elves exchanged wary looks. “You.... is wanting to _borrow_ the Sorting Hat?” the young spokes-elf repeated sceptically.

Harry nodded, “Yeah. To be returned. But he has a weapon that can kill the monster, if the rooster doesn't work, I'll need it.”

“Yous be waiting here then. Kelly be getting these things,” a female elf declared suddenly, shouldering her way through the crowd to the noisy disapproval of her fellows. The little elf straightened her shoulders and peered down her button nose at the others, “We's being _Hogwarts_ Elveses. We's being _protectors_ of little witches and wizards. We's being having a _duty_. If we's being able to stop the monster and protect the little witches and wizards, then we's should be doing it.” She looked up at him, her little face set, “Kelly be getting yous the Sorting Hat and boy chick-chick.” She popped away, not waiting for a further response from her fellow elves who began to mutter and argue amongst themselves, one or two beginning to twist their ears in distress – at least until harry caught their hands and pulled them away.

“Hogwarts elves don't punish themselves,” he chastised quietly. “They fix the problem if they can, and learn how to not do it again. Punishing yourselves doesn't help with either of those things.”

Eventually Kelly returned after about twenty to thirty minutes during which harry ate a quick meal to gird his loins and prepare himself. Both the Sorting Hat and the rooster were complaining quite vocally when she popped in and handed them over.

“Kelly be having the Sorting Hat and yous cluck-cluck,” she announced, levitating the bird and presenting the hat to him.

“Thanks Kelly, you're a damn good elf,” he praised with a grin, watching in amusement as her face flushed with pleasure and her ears wiggled happily. She curtseyed and then popped away, leaving him with the hat and a rather irate ball of feathers.

“So, what's all this then? Stealing me out from the office,” the hat grumped. Harry snorted and dropped it on his head, letting it see the current situation as Harry understood it, his plan to go into the Chamber before Myrtle was killed, deal with the basilisk using the rooster – but on the off chance it didn't work, hoping for the hat's back-up in the form of Godric's sword. “Good Lord! I should have ignored you and put you straight back into Gryffindor! Godric would be turning in his grave at the thought of this adventure! _I'm in!_ ” the hat exclaimed gleefully, wriggling on his head. “It's been entirely too long since I've last had a bit of excitement! Well, what are you waiting for? An invitation?!”

Harry chuckled, and quickly silenced the rooster before beating a hasty retreat.

“How many years has it been since I last went on an adventure?” the hat wondered with relish as Harry crept through the castle, dodging teachers and portraits. He sincerely hoped no one saw him, this would be impossible to explain. Sorting Hat on his head, chicken under one arm. He would just have to make sure he wasn't seen.

Thankfully, it wasn't like he was trying to get to the Room of Requirements – he only had to dodge a small handful of people before he was sneaking into the girls' bathroom. The room was largely unchanged from the future, less water-damage, and the pipes weren't as tarnished either, it looked clean and smelt pleasant enough – unlike the boys' bathroom. In the future this room smelt like mildew and stagnant water due to how often Myrtle flooded it, so the elves just gave up. The hat on his head chuckled at the strange direction of his thoughts and Harry flushed a little in embarrassment. Look, after six years of sharing a dormitory with guys who objectively housed pure _evil_ within their intestines, he was allowed to make comparisons.

He went to the sink and attempted the same eye-trick as last time with the little engraving. It didn't work, but he hadn't really been expecting it to as much as hoping. He wasn't exactly a Parselmouth anymore was he now that the Horcrux was gone. And Vader wasn't there to coach him through his pronunciation either.

Time to follow Ron's fantastic example.

“ _Serpensortia, imperio,_ ” he commanded, flicking his wand out and conjuring himself a little black snake that he quickly controlled into hissing his desired command. The bathroom sinks separated out and harry quickly snatched the little serpent up before it got crushed, curling it into the sleeve of his robe. He peered down into the surprisingly clean pipe, none of the accumulated sludge and slime that had decorated it fifty years from now to be seen which – once he gave it some thought wasn't all that surprising. Riddle was a bit of a priss at this age, wasn't he? No way someone so immaculately groomed and maintained in the _40's_ would be happy sliding down six inch drain sludge. It wouldn't surprise him if the Prefect had _scoured_ every inch of the chamber and assorted tunnels.

It did however make his life a little more difficult.

Hmm.... or not?

He spelled one of his feet with the Slipping Jinx and slid it carefully along the stone floor to see how much glide there was. The hat chuckled atop his skull, getting a clear idea of what he was intending.

“Oh, Rowena would have liked you,” he decided cheerfully.

“Thanks,” Harry grunted, “But somehow I doubt it.” He wasn't exactly the most diligent of students.

The hat snorted, “And you think Rowena was? That woman was far too smart and entirely too impatient for her own good. If it didn't interest her she didn't care to know about it. She couldn't tell the difference between lemongrass or mint, never mind potion ingredients. But she could name every star in the sky, every legend behind the constellations, and more about dirt and minerals than any alchemist alive. You're remarkably alike in your learning habits,” the hat declared knowingly.

“Yeah?” Harry asked, more than a bit surprised himself. He would have thought Ravenclaw would have been more like Hermione in her habits.

The hat scoffed and laughed, “Your Hermione would have given Salazar a run for his money on his researching habits. They would have ended up either hating each other or marrying.”

 _That_ he found harder to believe (and also easier – the studying thing, not the marriage one), but it was neither here nor there, and nothing to do with what he was trying to do. He cast the _arresto momentum_ spell on himself and jumped into the pipe, skidding down it as if he were on a skateboard going half-speed. The hat cackled atop his head and Harry found himself having to quickly snap his free hand up to hold it in place before its gleeful wriggling saw it fly off his head. The chicken in his other arm wasn't too keen if the way it scrabbled and tried to flutter was any indication, it calmed down eventually though when nothing much happened. They skidded down the pipe easily, Harry having to cast _lumos_ eventually as they got deeper and deeper and the bathroom lights cut off as the sinks closed up overhead.

All in all, Harry only stumbled at the end when he jumped out of the pipe, forgetting that one foot had the slipping jinx on it. He almost went arse over kettle when that foot went out from under him, kicked the wall, and stubbed a toe.

The hat cracked up laughing at him as he swore.

The tunnel was about the same as Harry recalled, cleaner though, which he was coming to expect. Who knew Riddle was such a neatfreak? He pushed the thought away as inconsequential and cancelled the two spells on him before heading deeper in, and beginning to layer shielding charms and impervious charms on his clothing for extra protection. Without the fear of Ginny's life hanging over his head, brain scrambling adrenaline from abducting their Defence Professor and holding him at wand point, and said teacher attempting to murder them, he actually found himself admiring a lot of the tunnel. Like something out of a video game it wasn't all rough-hewn slimy rocks and gloom. He made a point of lighting all the torch brackets he found which in turn illuminated the huge mosaics overhead that detailed the construction of the school and told the story of the founders. Huh. Godric and Slytherin apparently had a bit of a thing, or so the person making the mosaic seemed to think. But it all ended when – Godric found out he was a Parselmouth? He paused at the mural in confusion. Slytherin was stood in front of the wizard in red with a hand up as if to protect him from the snake. The next one showed Godric with a Cross in one hand while pointing a sword at Slytherin as he fled from the castle.

He wondered if Riddle had ever seen these.... not that he would have cared much if he had, it wasn't likely that the truth (if this was the truth) would have helped him gain power in Slytherin house with the old pureblood elite.

He used the imperio'd little snake to open the final door and stepped into the much dryer and less flooded Chamber of Secrets, lighting all the torches and brackets as he went, peering at all the terrible decorations. As sorry for the man as he may have felt about the whole being forced out of Hogwarts thing, he really needed better taste in interior decorating. There was such a thing as _too much_ when it came to snakes, stone, and emerald green.

He set the rooster down and cancelled the silencing charm.

“Okay, my feathery friend. It's your time to shine. When that face opens up, you crow as hard and as loud as you can, got it?” he asked the bird who ignored him entirely to bok-bok quietly and begin investigating his surroundings. He didn't get too far before Harry used the little snake on his wrist to open the statue's mouth.

The huge echoing hiss from the basilisk within was still intimidating as hell five years on, and Harry squeezed his eyes shut, “Now bird, now!”

Only the bloody thing didn't move.

“It's too scared to make a peep!” the hat on his head exclaimed, “Get your wand ready, boy! When you get a second take me off and pull the sword out!” he commanded, “The beast is dead ahead, jaw two feet from the ground, eyes parallel with your head, looking straight at you!”

Harry lashed out with the conjunctivitis curse, and a sticking charm.

The basilisk snarled, spitting and hissing furiously as its huge body writhed. “HAHA! Well done lad! Those eyes won't be opening any time soon!” the hat exclaimed and Harry took the risk of opening his eyes. Both spells had hit it dead on, forcing its eyes to shut and then gluing them down that way.

He whipped the hat off his head and plunged his hand deep within, feeling the handle of Gryffindor's Sword hit his palm like an old friend before he yanked it out and slapped the hat back onto his head. The sword was lighter than he remembered as he twisted it around in his wrist and readied himself. The basilisk wouldn't remain hissing and too in pain to ignore him for long, soon it would be on the attack.

He took a split second to banish the terrified chicken and the imperio'd snake to the far side of the chamber where they wouldn't get crushed – and then the basilisk was on him.

_Dive left – get your arm up boy, don't try to block something like that, turn the blade and direct it to the side, that's it – step back – there – aim – slash it_

He would later be grateful for the Sorting Hat's instruction, but for now, he was focused entirely on not dying. The little voice in his mind seemed like his own thoughts and he found his body moving to obey without hesitation. Twisting himself out of the way of attacks and slashing through armoured scales like paper until the basilisk finally reared back, opened its mouth wide, and lunged for him. Aiming to take him whole in one bite.

He took it.

Lowering his body, putting all of his weight forward, and tucking his shoulders down as he waited – for – the – perfect – _**MOMENT!**_

The basilisk slammed into him, mouth open.

The soft palate in the roof of the mouth did exactly as little to protect its brain as last time, and Harry yelled as the sword bit deep, and hot coppery blood splashed down across his face and hands, as he grit his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut against it, and his feet slid backwards on the stone floor under the dead momentum of the gargantuan creature's weight.

_Now! Pull it out and step back now, as hard as you can!_

He wrenched himself backwards, both hands on the hilt of the sword, yanking it with him, even as he lost his grip with one hand and swung the blade out wide, splattering a crimson arc across the stone floor as the serpent fell still.

He panted, staring down at the colossal monster, still and silent.

“Well done, boy,” the hat said into the silence.

Harry grunted, spitting the blood he'd accidentally gotten into his mouth to the side. “One less problem to deal with,” he rasped before huffing and summoning the chicken and the snake. “Let's get out of here before someone in Hufflepuff misses me.” No rest for the wicked. He'd been missing for a while, they were going to get suspicious if he was gone too long. He could probably pass it off as getting lost while following one of the ghosts, it would be believable. But if he took too long then there wasn't a hope in hell.

The hat chortled atop his head, “Not going to attempt to lay claim to this?” he asked lightly, and outright cackled at the immediate _vehement_ thoughts that clamoured around in Harry's head at the very idea.

“You're a bad hat,” he grumbled as he headed out of the chamber, dousing the torches as he went. “I hope you get lice.”

“Do you know how many unwashed eleven year old children I deal with, Potter? Lice are cute by comparison to some of the things I've had to deal with,” the hat complained with a strange twist and scrunch of disgust. Harry gave thought to Dudley and his poor hygiene and immediately felt sorry for the hat who probably had to deal with people during the _plagues_ , holy shit, had he been cleaned at all after sitting atop someone with small pox? “Hmph, give Salazar _some_ credit. He insisted on cleansing charms and wards upon me. A dig at Godric and his hygiene at the time, but a good idea none the less.”

Harry breathed a quiet sigh of relief and paused at the pipe leading up to the girls' bathroom.

...He really couldn't be fucked with subtle right now.

He carved a chunk of the floor up and then levitated it, with him on it, up the pipe like a lift. At least the hat was enjoying itself.

“Damn right I am! Do you have any idea how dull it is sitting on a shelf trying to think up song lyrics for the thousandth year running?” he complained as the wind rushed around them as they went up the huge pipe.

Harry snorted a little and jumped as they reached the bathroom, cancelling the levitation charm and ignoring how the earthen platform disintegrated immediately and scattered noisily back down the pipe. “Next time I find a dangerous and incredibly reckless adventure to go on, shall I ask Kelly to collect you again?” he asked, only semi-sarcastically.

The hat wriggled and practically jumped up and down on his head, “Yes! Yes! You had better!”

Harry snorted, a little surprised but hey, he could see how an intelligent hat would come in handy, and be bored to _tears_ stuck on a shelf for months on end with only song lyrics to think about. A second set of eyes was always useful. Playing poker at the Hogshead would definitely be fun. The hat cackled at the thought and the two of them left the bathroom, Harry pausing when he got a look at the wall opposite and the shining red words painted across it.

_The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the Heir beware._

His wand was slashing out before he could think twice, before he could think at all really.

White paint washed over the words, erasing them, and Harry snuck down the stairs, leaving behind his simple message: _Slytherin's Monster has been defeated. Hatred and cruelty will not be tolerated._

That was going to put a real bee in Riddle's bonnet. He was almost looking forward to it.

He snuck down to the kitchens, sidling across the entrance hall with every intention of getting the elves to clean up all the blood and to return both the hat and the chicken to where they belonged – but, of course, Fate just loved to laugh at her favourite whipping boy.

He almost walked straight into Riddle as he founded a corner. The second to last person he wanted to see him looking like _this_. The first being Dumbledore himself.

Tom Riddle stopped dead and stared at him.

Harry stared back, all at once entirely too aware of the fact that he was _painted_ with blood, the Sorting Hat on his head had yet to stop laughing and had now progressed to outright cackling, there was a particularly traumatised chicken under one arm, a bloodied sword in the other, and a _snake_ around his shoulders. In total. He looked ridiculous, nightmareish, and definitely up to no good.

Harry stared at him, thinking quickly, and Riddle stared back, unable to think of anything, his mouth open and his eyes practically popping out of his skull.

“No one will ever believe you,” the former Gryffindor found himself blurting out before he did the most ridiculous thing he could think of, something that only Fred and George would have done, and transfigured his shoes into rollerskates to make a quick get away, shooting around the corner to the kitchens with the hat positively _howling_ with laughter on his bloodsoaked head.

From the corner of his eye, he could see Vader in all of his blue-glowing glory staring at him in naked horror and bewilderment. ' _I left you alone for two hours! Two_ hours! _What have you been_ doing?!' the dead man exclaimed in distress, and Harry grimaced as he cancelled the transfiguration on his shoes to land in front of the kitchens and tickle the pear.

“Well, now that IS interesting,” the hat mused from atop his head, making Harry pause and Vader eye it suspiciously. “I can't sense our friend myself, but I can through you. Most curious, and absolutely fascinating. Truly, it is tragic that our dear Founders never had the chance to meet you, I think they would have found you most entertaining,” he cackled as the door to the kitchens opened and Harry swallowed against his suddenly dry throat. “Oh don't worry boy, I don't kiss and tell. Your secrets are safe with me. Helga would have it no other way.”

Harry breathed a sigh of relief as he stepped into the kitchen, and to the utter uproar of the elves when they got a look at him.

They were quick to clean him up at his request, and then take both the chicken and the hat back to their rightful places – the hat of course refused to take the sword back until it too had been cleaned, once that was done he graciously allowed Harry to resheath it and Kelly popped away with the two to be returned. Harry cancelled the summoning on his little black snake after making sure it was fed some raw meat from the kitchens as thanks for its hard work.

He left the kitchens after that, making sure to collect a tin of biscuits and an ever-full pitcher of pumpkin juice before heading to Hufflepuff, cover story already ticking over in his head. The last thing he expected to see when he walked in was Tom Riddle in the middle of the entrance way practically looming over an increasingly unhappy looking Pomona who lit up when she saw him.

“There you are! We were getting worried!” she exclaimed.

Harry smiled at her, eyeing Riddle 'curiously'. “Sorry, I saw a ghost when Professor Dumbledore dropped me off and went to ask it some questions. I got a bit turned around and some crazy portrait tried to pick a fight with me,” he explained with a grimace, “All the noise drew a poltergeist that chased me through half the school before I got away. One of the house-elves were kind enough to take me back to the kitchens and show me the way back. Here, they said it was alright, its for everyone to share,” he explained as he presented both the biscuit tin and the pitcher with a smile, absolutely cementing the story 100% in her mind. It was just a bonus to make Riddle look like he'd swallowed a raw lemon, rind and all.

“You were chased by a poltergeist?” Riddle echoed disbelievingly, only a scant hair from glaring fit to kill.

Harry nodded, looking earnestly at him, like butter wouldn't melt, like Ginny was telling Ron that no she _didn't_ have (another) boyfriend, honest. “Yes, some awful little orange man in a jester's hat,” he explained unhappily, watching as the teenager's expression soured further because he was definitely describing Peeves, a being that as a brand new student, he wouldn't have yet had the misfortune of meeting. Harry turned back to Pomona who had started to levitate his offerings and was nibbling on a lemon shortbread, “Honestly, that knight kept trying to pick a tight with me, are all the portraits here mad?” he asked, making her laugh.

“Not quite. Sir Cadogan is a bit special,” she explained with a smile.

Riddle ground his teeth and forced himself to smile, “Well, I am glad you made it back to your Common Room safely, Evans,” the Slytherin Prefect said soothingly. If Harry couldn't practically _taste_ the rage and uncertainty boiling off him, he might have even bought it.

He smiled as sweetly as he could at the Prefect, distantly aware of Vader being him muttering a quiet but entirely heartfelt ' _Shit_ '. “I think you can call me Harry, Tom, since you said I could use your first name, it's only fair,” he said kindly. Vader choked, and Riddle could only smile and agree as if it didn't physically _pain_ him to do so before he bade them both a good-natured goodbye and left the Hufflepuff Commons.

Pomona sighed, smiling as he left, “Tom really is the only nice Slytherin, I'm glad you two are getting along,” she gushed, a little bit of pink colouring her cheeks as she looked wistfully after the tall dark haired fifth year.

Oh, if only she knew.

Even Lucifer himself had the face of an angel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, guess who got tested for Corona today? 8DDD that's right, it's me. Thankfully here in England I should have my results tomorrow, if not then the day after according to the NHS website. 
> 
> This chapter is dedicated to Eyugho, whom get my brain on fire and got me working on this again. And also got me contemplating other Tomarry concepts that I need to figure out before pursuing further.
> 
> As for Binns being killed by the Basilisk, that's just my HC lol


	6. Chapter 6

It was a good thing classes were cancelled for the rest of the day, otherwise Harry would have never been able to explain where he'd been, or why he'd missed.... three classes  _ and _ lunch. As it was, there was another two hours before dinner but Charity had saved him a few sandwiches to nibble on – he was  _ famished _ though. Intensive physical activity was very appetite building.

Dinner in the Great Hall was buzzing as rumours flew across the tables, neither the Slytherins or the Gryffindors knew what had happened or why their classes were suddenly cancelled in the middle of third period, to say the reactions when everyone found out Professor Binns had died and come back as a ghost were excessive would be an understatement. At least in Harry's opinion. Speculation about the Heir of Slytherin was rampant, a few muggleborn first years were crying in fear about how the monster was attacking even the teachers now, no one was safe! A handful of the purebloods were looking nervous as well, Professor Binns was, after all, a very respected pureblood scholar. If the Heir had killed him, then no one was safe.

Harry let his eyes flicker to where Tom Riddle was sat amongst the other fifth year boys, face a picture perfect mask of mild concern and distant interest. He was fairly certain that Binns' death was purely accidental, otherwise he would have bragged about it as a horcrux, Dumbledore would have definitely brought it up to emphasise how horrible he had been as a teenager – Myrtle was very much an accidental death, why not throw another accidental death at a twelve year old boy to  _ really _ hammer home that the man trying to kill him was pure evil?

He smirked a little when Riddle's eyes caught him and turned away before giving him the satisfaction of anything else. He probably shouldn't antagonise him but it was just so funny, was this how Malfoy felt when it came to winding him and Ron up? If so, he could understand why the little shit persisted. 

After dinner he decided to unpack properly and decorate his knook, listening patiently as Vader read him the riot act, sounding surprisingly like Professor McGonagall as he did so - not that Harry was  _ ever _ going to tell him that. The man had demanded an explanation for where Harry had been, what he’d been  _ doing _ , and why he was covered in  _ blood _ with the  _ Sorting Hat _ and a  _ chicken?!! _

“Would have thought that was obvious, Vader,” Harry retorted quietly, spelling his curtains over and silencing them so none of the Hufflepuffs could overhear him talking to thin air and decide he was completely off his rocker. He’d like a Hogwarts year without that annoyance to be honest. “This is the year the Chamber of Secrets was opened, so I dealt with it before anyone else died,” he admitted dismissively as he transfigured a spare scrap of parchment into a pair of bookends on his desk. He was going to line all of his school texts up by subject and then author, it should make doing homework a bit easier. Yet again he contemplated the unfairness of Gryffindor Tower being so tiny before pushing the thought off, Ravenclaw wasn’t much different. He guessed the window views made up for the lack of space.

Vader spluttered, “ _ It was a _ Basilis -  _ that explains the chicken _ ,” he realised, relaxing almost comically. Only to then scowl and tense up again, “ _ That doesn’t explain the blood, or the _ sword!  _ Or the Hat! _ ”

The former Gryffindor snickered, “You’re really wound up about this. It’s not a big deal, really, I’ve killed it before.”

“ _ What?! _ ” Vader demanded. He would have called it a squawk but the man was far too dignified for something like that, apparently.

“Ninety two. Lucius Malfoy dropped your diary horcrux into Ginny Weasley’s cauldron. She used it, of course, ended up unleashing the Basilisk at Hogwarts. Ron and I figured out what it was, figured out where it was, and then went to go deal with it.” He could feel the sheer disbelief, confusion, and indignation rising from the former Dark Lord, along with something that felt like very real fear and concern. “Your horcrux took Ginny down there to finish sucking the life out of her so when I got there he stole my wand and unleashed the Basilisk. Fawkes, Dumbledore’s phoenix, showed up with the Sorting Hat to help. Gouged its eyes out and the hat gave me Gryffindor’s Sword. I killed the Basilisk with it, destroyed your horcrux with one of the basilisk’s fangs, and we all went back to Dumbledore’s office.”

“ _ What _ .”

Harry grunted in agreement, “Yeah. It went pretty much the same way this time. I got one of the kitchen elves to steal a rooster from a near-by muggle farm, and half-inch the Sorting Hat from Dippet’s office. As soon as the Hat found out what I wanted to do he was practically jumping up and down with glee to join in. I think he’s bored to tears up there to be honest. We went to the Chamber, the rooster was too scared to crow so I used a conjunctivitis curse and a sticking charm to glue the basilisk’s eyes shut and drew the sword again. The Hat coached me through using it and this time I was able to kill it without getting bitten, which was nice,” he admitted absently as he laid out his fountain pens and quills.

There was a long silence, long enough for Harry to realise something was off and look up. Vader was flickering in and out of sight, absolutely stone faced.

“ _ And this was something Dumbledore allowed? _ ” he demanded, voice fading in and out like a badly tuned radio.

Harry grimaced, “Allowed nothing. Malfoy blackmailed the other school governors to throw him out of the school. He wasn’t there, otherwise we wouldn’t have bothered taking Lockhart with us.”

A very strange feeling brushed over his mind mixed with rage, concern, disbelief, dis _ gust _ , and a very strange sensation of chagrined relief? And then he vanished, both his spectral blue form and also his presence.

Harry stared at his empty knook for a moment before shrugging and going back to unpacking. Vader would come back when he was good and ready, when he’d worked through whatever was bothering him. Thinking, it was kind of obvious he hadn’t known that Harry had killed the Basilisk last time, which seemed like a glaring oversight when he’d had Hogwarts in his grasp for a year solid. One would have thought that instead of making  _ Nagini _ his next horcrux a  _ literally _ immortal King of Serpents would have fit his aims, aesthetics, and goals better. He could have used the Basilisk to terrorise the wizarding world - ahhh, maybe he did? Harry had been so disconnected, perhaps he threatened the parents at the Ministry into behaving at risk of his unleashing the beast a second time? The students were already hostages, the parents would flip their collective shit if they knew the Dark Lord had them trapped in the castle with a millenia old Basilisk.

It wasn’t until the next morning that anyone found out about the Chamber of Secrets, the message he’d left about the monster being no more. Charity wondered how long the message had even been there as everyone was avoiding the corridor like the plague, as if reading the Heir’s warning had been enough to curse them. Did this mean Professor Binns’ death was natural?

He could feel Riddle’s eyes on the back of his head but had deliberately chosen a seat so they wouldn’t be facing each other - the urge to be a little shit would be too strong.

Riddle knew it was him. If he were anywhere near as smart as both Dumbledore and Voldemort believed, then he should figure it out. Harry didn’t exactly make it difficult by appearing in front of him with the sorting hat, a sword, a snake, a rooster, all the while plastered with blood. He still had no idea  _ what _ possessed him to turn his shoes into rollerskates and actively goad the Slytherin the way that he had, but his ears burned just thinking about it because surely at his age he could think of better excuses. Christ, Norberta swallow him alive, if the twins saw him…

All at once his good mood plummeted.

Fred and George. Now just… just George. Teddy now without his parents, without his godfather. Dennis and Collin, now just Dennis. Lavender and Pavarti, he didn’t know,  _ did _ Lavender survive Fenrir Greyback? He didn’t know, he didn’t know, he didn’t know. 

He felt a small nudge and glanced from the corner of his eye at Vader who floated beside him with a complicated look on his face and a hand on his shoulder. Oh good, he was back. Then he nodded at the teacher’s table where both Dippet, Dumbledore, and the grey haired professor, Merrythought, were all looking at him with varying expressions of suspicion and wariness. He ducked down into his meal.

Busted.

* * *

“Mister Evans, could you please stay behind?” Professor Dumbledore called as everyone began to pack up after their transfiguration lesson. 

Double busted.

Several of the Gryffindor students glanced his way as they left, confused, while the Hufflepuff students seemed to have expected it and were paying him no mind. 

“I’ll wait fer ye outside,” Charity promised as she swung her bag on.

Harry gathered his things and headed for Dumbledore’s desk, trying not to look as weirded out as he felt to see him look so  _ young _ , and well put together. He was in a  _ suit _ for crying out loud. A three-piece dove grey suit. The only splash of colour on him was his hair and the neat red and gold silk cloth tucked into his breast pocket. It was  _ surreal _ . He looked like someone Uncle Vernon would have spoken to respectfully.

The Professor eyed him seriously as he finished fussing with the homework papers on his desk and then got to his feet, “Mister Evans, do you know why I have asked you to stay behind?” he asked solemnly.

Oh, Harry had an  _ idea _ , but saying that would be as good as admitting his crimes.

“No sir,” he admitted, keeping his eyes on the man’s nose, his somewhat crooked nose. The one Aberforth broke at the funeral of their younger sister. His stomach clenched, and he sincerely hoped that Dumbledore wasn’t attempting to legilimence him right now because that was a thought that would only cause the man pain and then anger at wondering how Harry knew something so personal about him.

“Nothing at all?” the Head of Gryffindor House prompted further, in that tone of voice Harry had grown very familiar with from Professor McGonagall that told him the man knew full damn well what he’d done, knew it was him, and that lying to him was pointless. It was a very effective voice for a teacher, and it was the first time he’d heard it come from  _ Dumbledore _ . Harry said nothing and hoped that it didn’t come across as an admission of guilt. “Very well, Mister  _ Evans _ ,” Ouch. “Then perhaps you will humour my hypothesis over our most recent school events, hmm?” he wondered, and Harry felt his stomach twist unhappily.

Vader scoffed behind him, radiating anger and something very dark and cold that Harry was trying not to pay attention to as it was making his skin crawl, “ _ And he wondered why I hated him even _ before  _ I was irredeemably evil _ ,” he muttered scathingly. “ _ Sanctimonious prick. _ ”

The wizard leaned against his desk with his hands in his pocket, an unfamiliar wand holstered at his hip and it was with an unpleasant jolt in the pit of his stomach that Harry realised why it was unfamiliar. This was Dumbledore’s  _ actual _ wand, his personal wand, not the Elder Wand. “Yesterday it was discovered that Professor Binns had passed away, some believed it to be of old age, others that it was of more  _ nefarious _ means. All the students were returned to their houses while the teachers and Prefects conducted a search of the castle to no avail. During this time it was noted that a certain someone was missing from a certain house,” oooh shitfire, if any of them thought to question Peeves or Cadogan… “I believe, this certain someone knew more than they let the Professors be aware of, and then proceeded to take steps of their own to address the situation. Though for what reason, I could not fathom. What do you think of my theory?”

Harry swallowed against his sticky dry throat, humming unconvincingly as he stared up at the vaulted ceiling above them, “It’s a good theory, sir,” he agreed thinking hard and fast before deciding fuck it. Albus Dumbledore, for all of his flaws, and for all of the pain he had caused him, was still a good man. If Harry were giving the likes of  _ Voldemort _ , especially Vader, a second chance, then he could give Dumbledore one as well. A real one. He had already irredeemably changed his life by stealing the most character defining moment of his life, the one that made him into the man that Harry would grow up to know. Just as he had removed that moment for Tom Riddle by preventing him from making his first Horcrux in the accidental death of Myrtle. 

“Nothing to add?” the Professor enquired and Harry shrugged.

“I  _ imagine _ this someone might have heard about the petrifications and the whole Heir of Slytherin nonsense from other students and put a few clues together about the symbolism of the Slytherin house and the manner in which the good Professor passed on and decided to do something about it. I can’t speak for them sir, but if the monster really was an incredibly dangerous magical snake that had survived since Slytherin’s era, then I would be unwilling to inform the Professors about it when I knew how to deal with it. They might close the school which would send an awfully large number of students back to their muggle neighbourhoods, where the Germans are dropping bombs. The risk of one person, especially if they knew what they were doing, was negligible compared to the risk to the rest of the student body, especially given how many do not know how to apparate. Given the creature in question, taking a  _ rooster _ with them would ensure the monster died quickly and with no danger to anyone else,” he explained idly, still staring up at the ceiling so he didn’t have to look at the professor’s face as he probably came to the realisation of  _ what _ Harry had dealt with in the bowels of the school.

There was a long silence, but Harry didn’t dare look away from the ceiling as he pressed his lips together and held his hands behind his back. This was a very different Dumbledore to the one he knew, he wasn’t sure how the man would behave - the one he knew would award house points and give him a special award for services to the school. This one? He didn’t-

“Detention, Mister Peverell,” the Transfiguration Professor stated flatly, making Harry twitch and finally look down at him.

His face was almost as grey as his suit and he looked like someone had just  _ shot _ him.

“Of all the reckless, dangerous - a  _ basilisk _ \- alone - and you didn’t think to inform us - would you have ever spoken about it unless confronted?” the man demanded, his voice croaking in horror before true fear began to crackle through his voice in anger.

Harry leaned back, alarmed, “I - I mean, I wasn’t alone? It isn’t the first time I killed a basilisk, I didn’t even get bit this time?” he spluttered and had the dubious (unpleasant) privilege of seeing his former headmaster both at a loss for words and utterly incandescent with rage all at the same time.

“You - the Hospital Wing, right now,” he rasped.

He shook his head, taking a step back, “I’m fine! It didn’t touch me!” Much. It didn’t touch him enough to do any damage. He had some arm strain, the balls of his feet and his wrists hurt like a  _ bitch _ after he was shoved halfway across the chamber by the force of the creature’s lunge.

“ _ NOW!! _ ” the Gryffindor Head of House roared, slashing his wand up and slamming the door open, Harry flinched and turned - his mistake - the man grabbed him by the scruff of his school robes and began to physically drag him out of the classroom. “I have had some  _ foolish _ students in my time, Mister Peverell, but this is  _ beyond _ me!”

Thank all the Powers that Be the corridors were empty, he didn’t want to think about what kind of rumours would be flying around by lunch if anyone saw him being  _ physically _ man-handled by the Deputy Headmaster. What on earth kind of reaction was this?!

“I- I don’t under-stand?” he spluttered, staggering and having to jog to keep up with the taller man’s furious power walk. “What did I do wrong?”

They stopped and the Professor turned to stare at him in disbelief.

Harry didn’t get it. Sure he was used to people being furious at him for a variety of reasons, most of which didn’t make sense to him, but this was the first time  _ Dumbledore _ had been angry at him and he didn’t know why. He’d been disappointed, disapproving, even scared. But despite the long years and stress and ridiculous circumstances, despite not knowing what he thought or what he was planning and being  _ such _ an enigma… Harry had always been able to guess his emotions to a degree. Right now he was terrified and furious and  _ Harry didn’t know why _ .

He wet his lips, “It was dangerous and would have killed people. We couldn’t send the students away because they’d get caught up in the bombings. What’s the problem?!” he snapped, trying to shove away the horrible doubts and thoughts that the only reason he hadn’t been expelled for his past antics was that Dumbledore needed him to face Voldemort, that he had really been this furious with him the whole time, that he really  _ had _ been given preferential treatment. “What did I do wrong?!”

Dumbledore swallowed, his expression softening slightly along with his grip on the back of his neck, “You - put yourself in harm’s way.  _ That _ is why I am angry. That you decided to take a responsibility upon yourself that you did not need to, that you completely ignored the witches and wizards both older and more learned than yourself and instead took it into your head to nearly  _ kill _ yourself!”

Harry scoffed, “They were panicking at the very idea that Professor Binns’ death was anything beyond natural! How would Dippet have acted if he knew there was a Basilisk in the basement?” he demanded, sweeping an arm out in disbelief. “My life, or the lives of the hundreds of half-bloods and muggleborns in this school, Professor? Which do you think weighs more on the scale?”

“That is not the argument we are having right now, Mister Peverell!” the Transfiguration Professor snapped.

“But it is!” Harry retorted heatedly.

“There are plenty of Professors - ”

“Who would have gotten themselves killed!” he snarled, cutting him off. “Every time I have gone into a situation like this it has been  _ other people _ who have been in danger! I wasn’t going to take anyone to face a Basilisk, not when one wrong move will get them killed or turned to stone or poisoned and there’s no convenient phoenix near-by to heal up the bite wound this time!!”

Dumbledore’s expression was agonised, “You are just a boy, Mister Peverell, you needn’t put yourself at such risk!”

Harry huffed, and shoved the hand off his back, “Then who will?” he demanded before stalking away towards the Hospital Wing like the man wanted.

The rest of the journey there was silent.

* * *

Once the healer has ascertained that Harry was perfectly fine beyond his malnutrition that he was already on potions for, Professor Dumbledore silently escorted him to Charms which he would again be the lone Hufflepuff in out of a mixed Ravenclaw/Slytherin room. The Transfiguration Professor kept glancing at him throughout the walk, opening his mouth as if to speak only to think better of it and turn away.

Harry did not help him or attempt to initiate conversation.

The Charms Professor was a surprisingly attractive young witch with long brown hair and green tartan robes called Professor Cooper. She asked for volunteers to assist him in class, and surprisingly Myrtle raised her hand (Unsurprisingly Tom was amongst them). Harry chose the young girl and smiled at her when he sat down.

“How are you feeling?” he asked gently as he began to unpack everything.

Her smile was a little damp and tremulous but it was still a smile, “B-better than yesterday. Now that the monster is gone,” she admitted with a short huff of air. He smiled at her as she swallowed and pushed her textbook over and began to explain the lesson, a revision session on the levitation charm and its various off-shoots, he had to wonder how much of her ‘eternal hormones’ was because of all the stress she had been under before the moment of her death. Her favourite Professor died, she was being bullied, there was a monster prowling the corridors, Grindelwald, the Blitz, her  _ actual _ hormones, it was a potent mix of things that would have been enough to make a lot of people cry from sheer anxiety.

Still, she seemed to be holding up okay now that the more dangerous immediate threat was dealt with, that was good. He smiled a little in relief to know he had saved her from a life of haunting a toilet, she would actually get the chance to grow up now. He looked forward to seeing what she would make of herself.

It was a good lesson, despite his being late. He didn’t particularly need to revise the levitation charm but then again, he realised he actually kind of did. He was with the fifth years.

He had to sit his OWLs again.

Fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, if this chapter is unusually short, or long, or has weird tenses/formatting, I am sorry. I'm visiting my parents for the next week and decided not to bring my laptop but work off my tablet - which does not have a word processor. So I'm working entirely off google docs. XDDD
> 
> Sorry I vanished for so long after the last update, the response was surprisingly huge and I momentarily panicked wondering how on earth I was going to top the rollerskating scene. Decided I couldn't, and just kept writing. Still, Ihope you all enjoyed Dumbledore actually acting like a decent human being, Harry just not _getting_ it after all the shit he's been through, and more Myrtle. Poot Vader, realising that he got damn lucky time and again because his 'rival' is more dangerous than EITHER of them knew.


End file.
